All the Extras
by Izzy
Summary: After the events of the finale battle, lots of loose ends need tying up, and the recovery of all those still alive may take a long time.
1. The Second Day After

"Here. Percy's written the letter. The goblins'll like it, but they're able to tell who writes something, so you should just copy it over."

"Thanks, Bill." Harry took the piece of parchment, another blank one, and copied down:

_Dear Mr. Griphook,_

_As you may recall, on the 9th of April of this year, we agreed that in return for a certain favor I would bestow upon you the sword of Godric Gryffindor, which was in my possession at the time, though as it happened we neglected to specify an exact time for the transfer. Unfortunately before I could follow through on my part of the agreement, the sword fell out of my hands, to my great regret._

Harry chuckled at this point. His regret had been great all right-that he hadn't managed to keep a hold of the sword until all the Horcruxes were destroyed. Though that regret had diminished after things had worked themselves out and the Horcruxes had all been destroyed anyway. Which had happened when Neville had somehow pulled the sword out of the Sorting Hat. How it had gotten there Harry hadn't had the slightest idea, nor had he cared much. Much later Hermione had said something about an Object-Binding, but Harry still hadn't cared much. Now he saw Percy had addressed it all in the letter:

_However, through a set of surprising circumstances, I again found the sword to be in my possession, and therefore it gives me great pleasure to fulfill my promise and gift it to you now.  
In all good conscience, however, I cannot do so without first warning you that it appears to be magically Bound to the Hogwarts Sorting Hat, kept at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, into which it is therefore vulnerable to transportation. This Object-Binding is breakable, and I would advise you to contact Hogwarts' current Headmistress, Professor Minerva McGonagall, and arrange with her for this to be done._

Harry actually wasn't sure whether or not Professor McGonagall would agree to help. But that was her decision, not his, and obviously there was no need to mention that in the letter.

_I hope you this will leave you satisfied on all accounts, and offer my deepest apologies for whatever inconveniences you may have suffered.  
I beg to remain,_

_Your most affectionate friend,  
Harry James Potter_

He then did something he didn't usually bother do: he took his wand and used it to curl the note into a tiny scroll. He still felt a physical thrill when he used it, as if his arm had missed its own companion wand. He even used it again to tie the scroll to the sword, then picked it up by the hilt. "I'll just take this up to the owlery, then?" He felt a pang as he spoke, though, to be fair, he probably would've needed at least two owls to carry the sword in any case.

It was the second day after *that* night, as Harry was coming to think of it as. The night when everything had been resolved, when Voldemort had gone down, when people dear to him had been killed, when the most significant-and hopefully the most difficult-phase of his life had come to a close. Yet a great deal remained unresolved. Besides this matter, and the question of what to do with the remains of Hufflepuff's cup (the tiara hadn't left significant remains), there were also repairs to the school to be made, teachers to be replaced, and most important to him, Ron, and Hermione, decisions to be made about what they were going to do with their lives now. All three had been declared honorary Aurors the previous day, but Hermione, at least, was insisting on coming back to Hogwarts next year and completing her schooling, and it was probably a good idea for all three of them. But first they were all going to go to Australia to retrieve her parents.

And probably most frustratingly, when he had talked to Ginny again, she had been vague about what she now wanted from him. She was angry for being left behind and taken for granted, and he didn't know what he could do to make her not angry anymore besides apologizing, which he'd done already. "Give her time," Hermione had said to him. "She'll come round."

He was going down the stairs into the Entrance Hall when much to his surprise he heard Professor McGonagall call, "Potter! Going to the owlery?"

"Yes, Professor," he said. "I made the promise to the goblin, you know." She'd left it up to him to decide what to do with the sword, and he'd told her what he intended to do, but he wasn't sure if she truly approved of that.

"Mind if I walk with you?" she had now caught up with him, and was holding a letter of her own.

"No," he said, though it felt strange as they walked down together and out towards the owlery. He wondered what would happen if he tried to talk to her; if she would address him as a student, or as an adult.

"Err, Professor," he finally said, "if you don't mind me asking, who's the letter for?"

"No, I don't mind," she said. "It's actually for a painter I know, one Daphnis Hollander. I'm going to see if he would be willing to make a portrait of Professor Snape."

"Oh yeah," said Harry. "There wasn't one in the Headmaster's Office, was there?" He hadn't thought to look for it when he'd gone up there after the battle, but it had been long enough after Snape's death that there should have been one. "Did something go wrong? A side-effect of the battle?"

"No, but the portraits refuse to acknowledge any decisions You-Know-Who made on behalf of the school as legitimate, so Snape cannot be formally recognized as having been Headmaster. Professor Nigellus isn't happy about it, mind you, and several of the other portraits want Snape included, but most of them are against it; they see it as honoring the violation of Hogwarts. But I really think that even if he can't have his portrait hung in the Headmaster's Office, Professor Snape has done enough to have it hung somewhere, possibly the Great Hall. Hollander specializes in painting from Pensieve memories, so he'll create a good likeness."

He had thought, then, to ask her if she had ever owned an owl of her own, but perhaps that was going a little far. Yet when they stepped into the owlery together Harry found himself asking, "Do you think any of them remember Hedwig anymore? She lived with them for six years, after all."

"I don't think we can know for sure," said McGonagall. "There's still much about owls we don't know. But they recognize us, so why not? You should use two of the bigger brown owls for the sword."

Two of them had already flown down to Harry. One of them easily hooked her talons around the sword hilt, but the other struggled to grasp the blade. "Needs a Gripping Charm, I should say," said McGonagall, and she pointed her wand at the broom and muttered, _"Tutus."_

"Thanks, Professor," said Harry, hiding his embarrassment at actually not remembering how to do the Gripping Charm. He'd learnt it back in fourth year, he thought, and then never thought to find a use for it outside the classroom. Very foolish of him; he was lucky he hadn't needed it.

They had watched the owls fly away with the sword and emerged from the owlery when another owl came flying right at them, and dropped a very official-looking letter into McGonagall's hand. "It's from the French Ministry," she said in surprise.

"Have many foreign ministries been owling you?" Harry asked. "Maybe they want to know the details about Voldemort being gone."

McGonagall was opening the letter and reading it, nodding as she read; at first Harry thought he'd been right about the letter's contents. But then he saw her expression of surprise, and she shook her head and pocketed the letter.

"What did it say?" Harry asked before he could stop himself.

"School business, Mr. Potter," she replied crisply, not looking at him; she was once again the strict authority figure whom he ought not to cross.

But Harry's curiousity got the better of him, and he asked, "School business? What could they possibly be writing about?"

"Confidential, Mr. Potter," she replied, and he asked no more after that, but spent the rest of the walk back still wondering what sort of confidential school business related to Hogwarts would come to its de facto Headmistress two days after Voldemort's fall.

When he came into the Gryffindor common room he found Hermione working on Hufflepuff's cup while Ron watched. She had managed to magically paste together the fragments into something that vaguely resembled the old cup, even though it was a little misshapen, had some holes in it, and was streaked with burns from the basilisk venom.

"What are we going to do with that?" sighed Harry. "Who would want it looking like that?"

"Oh, the Smiths still will," said Hermione without looking up. "I know it's very silly of them, but trust me, they'll still want it, and good, because it's theirs by right. Though Zacharias probably won't be very nice to us as he takes it."

"He's got no right to not be," said Ron. "I suppose he'd want the cup looking prettier but having a piece of You-Know-Who's soul inside of it? And how many hours are you sitting here trying to make that thing look better? If that prat says anything, you should refuse to give him that cup."

"But then what would we do with it?" Harry pointed out. "No, give him the cup, and as soon as he's got it in his hands, we can interrupt any angry comments by telling him we did not come to argue about anything and leave. Just get it off our hands and know we've done a good deed."

**That Evening**

Zacharias did not utter any angry comments when they presented him with his family heirloom; on the contrary, he thanked them very politely, though he held the cup between his fingers with evident distaste. He didn't even ask where they'd gotten it from, though Harry had gotten the impression that the general story of that had gotten around.

He, Ron, and Hermione sat down at a Gryffindor table that was largely, but by no means completely or even mostly, populated by Gryffindors. The previous night had been much like the aftermath of the final battle, with nobody paying much attention to what table they sat at, and the villagers attending and mingling freely with the students and teachers. The villagers were mostly gone now, but when they spotted Neville, he was sitting with not only Dean, but Luna, another Ravenclaw girl whom Harry thought was from her year, Padma Patil, Susan Bones, and even a boy that Harry could've sworn was a sixth-year Slytherin. He looked for Ginny, but she was surrounded by other girls from all four houses.

Luna and Neville separated a little bit and the group quickly settled the trio in between the two of them. The other Ravenclaw girl bent over Luna to introduce herself. "Silvia Garrick. And this is my boyfriend, Alexandros Fauston." She gestured to the Slytherin. He smiled very politely.

"So," Padma suddenly chirped, and Harry wondered why she sounded so nervous. "What's everyone's plans now? We didn't get much of a seventh year, after all, did we? Any of us."

"I didn't get a seventh year at all," said Dean. "Is it true, Hermione, that you've talked to McGonagall about coming back next year?"

"Yes," she said, "I knew already, you see, that students who fail all of their O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s are allowed to repeat fifth or seventh year, so I thought we could do the same. She was for it in theory, though she was concerned about overcrowding, since she's not sure we can even hold the N.E.W.T.s this year. After all, the curriculum was completely messed up, and they were trying to revamp the N.E.W.T.s to match all the horrible stuff they were teaching here, so they don't have any proper tests prepared. The O.W.L.s haven't been prepared at all; I don't know what they were planning to do there..."

"But maybe not everyone will come back," said Susan. "I think Ernie and I are just about the only ones from our own house who aren't seriously considering going out to help rebuild."

"Seamus said something similar," said Dean. "His father committed suicide, you know, and his mum's in a very bad way. I'm not sure what happened to her, exactly, but apparently she's needed constant care. Various members of his family have been doing it."

"Maybe we should make a list," suggested Hermione, "of all the students who definitely want to come back, those who aren't sure, and those who definitely won't. Give Professor McGonagall some idea of how many she might be dealing with."

"That sounds like a good idea," said Padma. "How should we do this, though? Who's going to do the asking?"

"Maybe have someone different ask each house," said Ron. "Easier that way. You should do the Gryffindors, Harry." Harry nervously nodded as Susan agreed to do the Hufflepuffs, Padma the Ravenclaws, and Alexandros Fauston the Slytherins.

"So to start the survey right here," he said, "Are all of us coming back? Are you, Neville?"

"Wouldn't miss it," said Neville, and Dean nodded too. "And I know the three of us are coming back..." He fished a spare piece of parchment and quill and scribbled on one side of it "Returning," under which he wrote all of their names. "That's all of us except Seamus, Lavender, and Parvati."

"Parvati won't be able to answer you right away," said Padma immediately. "We have to hear from our parents."

"So should I put her under Undecided?"

"No need to hurry; we're just waiting for a letter from them now."

"Okay, then," said Harry, and he put the parchment away.

"I wonder," said Silvia Garrick, "if they'll let the sixth-years repeat as well. Many of us didn't learn much last year either, after all."

Harry noticed that as she said this, both Susan and Padma cast less than pleasant looks at the younger girl at this remark, and he wondered what they meant. But neither of them said a word.

Hermione spoke next instead. "It does take two years to really prepare for the N.E.W.T.s, and you would be at a disadvantage. But how many provisions can McGonagall make? And then again, maybe some of them won't want to take the extra year; they might want to finish up as quickly as possible." She considered it, then said, "Maybe we should do a survey of everyone above third-year. I think below that, it's just basic skills, and everyone probably learned those. How intensive was all the things about the Dark Arts and the anti-Muggle propaganda?"

"Pretty strong in their classes," said Padma. "But of course the others did try to carry on as normal. I think, too, Professor Flitwick tried to teach the younger years a few of the things that he might have otherwise left to a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, so that they learned how to deal with dark wizards as well as how to be dark wizards. Maybe the third years should have some exams over the next week?"

"Oh, the exams!" cried Hermione. "How are we to do the exams? Not even just the O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, but for all the other years as well."

"I don't there's going to be exams for everyone this year, Hermione," laughed Ron. "If anyone."

"After all these years," she sighed, "you still don't see anything wrong with that, do you?"

"We got through fine without having them in second year, right?"

"Maybe, but I still hope Professor McGonagall figures something out. How is anyone to know what to do if nobody knows what anybody learned?"

But it was then that the woman in question herself rose to her feet, and the Great Hall fell silent.

"I believe almost everybody has arrived," she said, and as he had last night, Harry couldn't help but observe how she still lacked Dumbledore's command of the room, though she got everyone to listen to her fine. "So I believe I should deliver to you the latest news.

You will be pleased to hear that most known Death Eaters in the country are now accounted for as either dead or in Ministry hands. A few remain at large within Britain; also a few we believe to have escaped overseas."

"What about the Malfoys?" Ron whispered. "Did anyone arrest them?" Harry shrugged. All he knew was they had left the morning after the battle, after Narcissa Malfoy had first stopped by to remind him that he owed her a favor. It was obvious enough where she planned to call that favor in.

"Although no dates have yet been sent for trials," McGonagall continued, "I have been advised by the acting Minister that for the trials of all those captured here at Hogwarts, some of you may be called as witnesses, especially if you engaged in direct combat against them. Also against the Carrows."

"They'll be hammering at the door to testify against the Carrows," murmured Susan. Several of the other students who heard her nodded their agreement.

"Also, we have managed to make contact with some of the many Muggle-borns and others who were forced to go into hiding this year, whose location was unknown last night. Enough, in fact, that I have compiled a list of them, which will be available for viewing in Entrance Hall and in each of the Common Rooms beginning at eight o'clock tonight, by which time we hope to have even a few more names to add to it. Sadly, however, we have also confirmed a number of deaths, which will also be posted. I think, meanwhile, it will please most of you to hear that Theodore Nott has been reported as alive and well."

Here she was cut off by cheers from all over the Hall. Most were from the Slytherin table, but there were too many for them all to be from Slytherins. McGonagall waved for silence, and added, "Unfortunately, he reported to us the death of Conni Halagard, on March 31." Harry remembered Conni as a Hufflepuff in their year, though he'd never really known her. But many of those around him, and not just the Hufflepuffs, looked very affected. "He also reported that Ruth Hemmings was in their company, and that she was alive as of March 30, when they were separated from her. He held out hope that she survived, but for the moment, we don't know. Other names, as I said, will be posted at eight tonight."

Neville explained before Harry asked. "Theodore Nott was a Death Eater's son who decided he didn't really agree with his father. He made life a little more difficult for those of his fellow Slytherins who actively support the regime here, and I think he turned the minds of a few of them who were more neutral. Pity none of them still felt like doing anything...he also openly defied the Carrows on a couple of occasions in September, when he could get away with it. I think Conni Halagard was his girlfriend, though they might have just been friends. Ruth Hemmings was her best friend and a Muggle-born, and I'm sure their actions were partly driven by worry about her. Another thing they both did was help us receive Pottercast a few times; she displayed a knack for it.

Late in November something happened between one of them and Amycus Carrow. Noone's sure what. The last the two of them were seen they were racing out of the castle with the Carrows Stunned on the floor of the Entrance Hall. And now she's dead."

"They should have come back here," said Hermione. "Too bad they didn't know about the DA."

"I don't know," said Susan. "I don't know if they would have wanted to hide out here. I doubt Conni would have."

"I hope for more news tomorrow morning," McGonagall was finishing up. "Meanwhile, I hope you will all keep in your thoughts not only those who we know to be lost, but those who are still out there, hiding, unaware that the war has even ended, and those who are dead, but whose fate has not even been revealed to give their loved ones closure. I fear, in fact, that the full casualities of these past three years will not be known for possibly months."

**Gryffindor Common Room, Later**

When eight o'clock was approaching, everyone knew, and the cluster around the bulletin board was so thick Harry thought it was kind of selfish for the three of them to be taking so much space together in front of it. Maybe only one of them should have been there. But they had to stay there now, because it was impossible to get out.

On Harry's left side was Seamus, and he was continually shifting and tapping his foot. "C'mon..." he muttered. "They shouldn't have made us wait this long. Half of my family's still missing!"

"I'm sorry about your parents," said Harry.

"You heard, huh?" Seamus sighed. "It's just plain evil, what they did to my dad. Everyone from my family who could fled to Wexford. Not that Ireland's been at all safe, but it's been better, especially for my mam. Last I heard we're not even sure who did what to her; her memory's sketchy."

"It's eight," said someone from the back. "Is it going to come up or not?"

But then, a moment later, there was a quick shimmer at the bulletin board, and two large pieces of parchment hung from its top.

The crowd of students, already bunched up against the wall, pressed in further, and Harry found himself shoved up against the bottom of one of the lists before he even had time to look at which was which, staring at a pair of names he didn't recognize, left to wonder if they had been confirmed as alive, or as dead.

"Oh!" he heard Hermione exclaim. "Saul Moon is dead!"

"Who?" Harry asked; he thought he might have heard that name said a couple of times, but nowhere really important.

"He was Head Boy in our fifth year," answered Ron. "Really cool guy, actually. Had a sister in our year; I forget which house."

But meanwhile, Harry heard Seamus exclaim, relieved, "Uncle Aoife's alive!"

Harry managed to spot the name of _Aoife Mallory_ on the lower list, so now he knew which list was which. He still wasn't able to see most of the names, or any names that he recognized.

But then he heard Ron say, "Jane Rivers is dead."

He managed to look up towards the upper casuality list, eyes searching for the name of his Muggle-born classmate. This list was alphabetical, but names beginning with R were out of his sight; it was so long. He remembered McGonagall's last words in her speech to them, and he was hit like never before with the impact of it all, how many lives in Britain alone had been in so much peril for so long, and just how much had been riding on his ability to defeat Voldemort, and the sooner he had done it, the better. He was glad he hadn't thought of it before, because if he had, he would have been too overwhelmed and scared to move.

Someone was pushing at him; it was a girl who looked like she couldn't have been beyond her first year, and Harry did his best to move and make room for her. He bumped into Seamus, who looked at him funny until he pointed.

On the girl's other side, Ron was also trying to make room, and between the two of them, there was enough space for her to squeeze in. "I'm looking for my parents," she announced. "Eric and Marlene Sarpan. They've been missing since January, but I don't know why." They were not on the lower list; all of them could see that clearly. She was straining to see up, but it was clearly a hopeless cause. "Let me lift you up," Ron offered.

"Then everyone behind us won't be able to see!" Hermione protested, but the girl was already eagerly moving to accept his offer. "I'll only keep you up for a second, but while you're up there, could you tell us if you see anyone with the last name of Prewett or Parrott?"

There were a couple of yells of indignation as she went up in the air, but she was back down quickly enough, and shaking her head sadly. "No parents, no Prewetts, no Parrotts."

"I suspect your mum will know about her relatives before anyone else does, Ron," Hermione said gently.

Eventually the crowd thinned enough that Ron and Harry were able to pry their way out. Hermione had always seemed to remember more names then the two of them, so they left her to find any more important ones. They ended up against the nearby wall, watching other students weaving their way in and out of the throng. It wasn't the prettiest sight; there were far more tearful faces than relieved and happy ones. Harry spotted Ginny for a fleeting moment, but if she saw him, it probably only caused her to keep away.

Dean joined them, shaking his head. "I'm starting to think I'm really lucky," he said.

"Not just lucky," said Ron. "You had the ability to defend yourself, too, right?"

"I suppose, yeah," said Dean. "Definitely wouldn't have survived without that a couple of times. But even then I was lucky; all the training you gave us wouldn't have done much good if he'd hit me first, you know?"

"I know," said Harry. "Believe me, I know." Ron too nodded; they all knew, now, exactly what Dean was talking about.

"And it's really weird," he continued, "but now…I'm not sure how I'm just going to return to normal life. Everything's just…I can't really explain it."

"You don't have to," said Harry softly. "I think we all know what you mean there, too." He himself was a little worried. Everything had been fine so far, but when it came to going back, to putting his nose to the grindstone for his N.E.W.T.s the following year and just carrying on with life as if he hadn't suffered all the pain and loss he had…he didn't know if he could do it.


	2. Sorting a Summer's Timetable

Harry was now starting to wake up at a relatively normal time in the morning again, but so far he had not grown used to the sense of relief when he did so, the knowledge that he need not be in fear of anything horrible happening that day. Today was also the day classes were to resume, though exams had been cancelled, and how much teaching anyone besides McGonagall or Binns would be up to noone was sure. He had his list of Gryffindors and their plans prepared for her, but Harry still hoped he didn't have Transfigurations that day.

Before going to bed Hermione had commented that she thought she would feel like a very early breakfast the next day, and the other two had understood. Though Harry had come to realize that Ron had understood better, when he had asked him, very nervously, if the latter minded if he borrowed his invisibility cloak very, very early the next morning. Harry had agreed, and was glad he was now falling asleep extremely quickly each night, before he thought about anything he didn't want to think about.

When he reached the Great Hall his two friends were there already, munching away on their bacon, as if they'd simply come straight down there from their dorms, except that Ron's hair looked like it did after showering, and when he rarely showered in the mornings. Harry told himself not the think about the possibilities of why.

They actually weren't completely alone at the Gryffindor table, but all the other students sitting there looked pretty young; certainly Harry didn't know any of them. For a moment he thought of Colin Creevey, which made him glad he didn't know them.

Funnily enough, he actually didn't feel that bothered when the other students there already pointed to him and whispered. There were worse things that had happened in the world than that.

"I've just subscribed to the Prophet again," Hermione said to him as he sat down. "We're going to want daily news for a while."

Actually, Harry didn't know if he really did. But he saw her point, so he shrugged and grabbed for the bacon.

"I've also booked us plane tickets," she said. "I really want to go to Australia by plane, you see, and I'd like to stay in a Muggle hotel as well. It'll be easier to find my parents with magical aid, but I want to be accessible to them otherwise. I don't think I've been much these past seven years."

Harry looked at Ron. He rolled his eyes, and looked away, leaving Harry to suspect he'd already argued with Hermione about this and lost. "If that's what you want," he said. He didn't mind that much, honestly. At the moment, his life felt strangely disconnected, and he found himself seeing how little it mattered if they went to a place by plane or by Portkey.

When Harry had taken to eating at odd hours during the first weeks of the Triwizard Tournament, he had found it to be a more effective way of avoiding people than it proved that morning. Maybe some of his classmates had wanted to be by themselves too. But Neville came in alone, and though he cast a long look in their direction he then went to sit by himself in the corner of the table. Harry saw Malfoy come in alone as well, and everyone gave him a wide berth. By the time the three of them were finishing up, there was a moderate crowd dispersed through the Great Hall, the amount of people one would usually have expected to see about half an hour later. The owls might noticed, since they arrived way early, just before they got up.

Like many of the students, Ron was continually expecting news from his family, so they remained seated and waited. Harry saw Neville receive a letter, as did Malfoy. And then, to his very great surprised, a great white owl, much larger than Hedwig had been, landed in front of him with a bulging white envelope. "That's from the Ministry," said Hermione as she received her copy of the Prophet. "No doubt about it."

"I don't think I want to open it right now," said Harry, and shoved it into the pocket of his robe.

"You really should..." said Hermione.

"Well I don't!" he snapped, and stood up; it was clear that there was no owl for Ron. He didn't look too bothered; his family had only left the previous day, after all. Plus he wasn't really looking forward to the forthcoming letter, since a large part of it would probably be occupied with the funeral arrangements for Fred.

It was a beautiful day outside, and with time before their first class the three of them went onto the front lawn and sat down. When Harry closed his eyes a gentle breeze whistled through his ears. Behind them he heard the doors open, and a whole crowd of voices, none of which he recognized, were oddly hushed as they passed them by.

"Umbridge is going on trial," was Hermione's first news as she perused the paper. "Set to begin on 20th; one of the first trials. I think they might be trying the collaborators before the Death Eaters; Thicknesse goes to trial on the 28th."

"Awesome," said Ron, "she's finally going to get what she deserves."

"I don't know," Hermione sighed, "I think she might be able to get out of trouble; she's too good at that."

"Do you think they'll want us to testify?" asked Harry. "In theory, they shouldn't really need us, I think everyone saw how evil she was."

"It might not be a bad idea," said Hermione. "If you come out strongly enough against her, your voice could tip the scales."

She didn't exactly sound happy, though. She wanted them to be in Australia at that time, Harry knew. "Look," he said, "we're not going to have much time to be out of the country in the future and I think that's going to be that. It's definitely not fair that we're still needed after all we've done, but we can see this through to the end. When are our tickets for?"

"The 11th," said Hermione. "I wanted to give time for..." For Fred's funeral, she didn't say out loud.

Ron didn't want to think about it either, because he then asked, "Any more trial dates set?"

"None that stand out," she replied. "A number of Snatchers, but their photos are all in here and I don't see any of the ones that caught us."

"The Snatchers were a pretty informal lot," said Ron. "I don't think there were even records kept on all of 'em. They're probably only able to go after the leaders."

Hermione made a disapproving noise and turned the page. "And they're turning their focus to the Quidditch World Cup. You know, I think that's mostly taking place in Australia."

"Does it have the draw in there?" asked Ron. "I was staying with Bill and Fleur, you know, when England and Scotland both qualified by the skin of their teeth, and Wales actually missed out, but I left before the draw was done."

"No," said Hermione, "but I heard Ginny say England was drawn into the Group of Death. England's team to be announced on the 10th, Scotland's on the 13th. They should be glad we won the war in time; Ginny says it'll give them a lot more freedom in whom they choose."

Hearing that would have pleased Harry much more had he been younger, but it was still a good thing to hear nonetheless. "Anything else?" he asked. "People turning up alive or dead?"

"I'm looking...some arrests have been made in France. Oh, someone's been arrested in Italy, too, for the murder of Karkaroff. And...'incentive of giants to violence against humans.'"

"That's one they might need Hagrid to give testimony against," Harry mused. "Though it might not be the people he saw talking to the giants. Grawp too, maybe." That was something he still hadn't thought about much, how far Voldemort's reign had reached. He had known there were Death Eaters outside of the Britain, since Karkaroff had been amoung them, but there hadn't seemed to be that many.

As if reading his mind, Hermione said, "The Prophet is suggesting he had less reach outside of Britain this time. Last time, remember, Riddle did a lot of traveling around the world and especially in Eastern Europe, favouring the old haunts of Grindelwald, it's thought, and he recruited as he went. This time he was focused more on gaining absolute power here in Britain first. Though according to this, there's evidence he would have turned his attentions to expansion fairly soon."

"Do you think they're right in all they're saying?" asked Ron.

"Don't know...no new reports on anyone who's been missing. They express a hope to have something in the evening edition, though-there are going to be evening editions regularly for a while. Honestly, the bulletin boards will be a lot quicker."

She read a little further, but seemed to find nothing more in the paper worth taking about. The three of them continued to lay there. Harry found himself irrationally hoping Ginny would wander outside and decide to come over, but she didn't. He wondered if maybe he was supposed to go try to talk to her again or something. He still never knew what to do when it came to girls, even if with Ginny he'd somehow never really needed to.

"Potter, Granger, Weasley, there you are! I've been looking for the three of you." The three of them rose as they heard McGonagall's voice. "A little late in the year, perhaps, but you must have timetables. I've kept you in all your old classes, though there's no Defense Against the Dark Arts right now; we'll have to find yet another teacher, I fear. Also, Potter, Ms. Bones said you have a list for me?"

It was a relief that she knew already; Harry was starting to realize any explanation he didn't have to give would be. Still, as he handed her his list, he asked softly, "Did you know that Hogwarts wasn't able to keep a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher because of Voldemort?"

"That Professor Dumbledore believed so, yes. I can't say I'd mind if he turned out to be right." She sounded skeptical, though. "Good morning."

The day did not include Transfigurations. Harry breathed a sight of relief.

**That Night**

Harry had forgotten completely about the Ministry packet before Hermione asked him at dinner what had been in it. As result, he ended up opening it while sitting alone in the dorm, about an hour before the lists of those found alive and those found dead were to receive the first of what were to be daily updates. What he found there was not anything that it seemed right to talk about with said event imminent. Though it would definitely excite Ron-later. Also, Hermione might also be pleased, since it meant they were going to be spending a lot of time in Australia indeed.

So he didn't mention it at all when he came down to the common room and everyone crowded again around the bulletin board. This time someone thought of using a Levitation Charm, and soon there was the almost comic sight of one crowd hanging around over the heads of another. Hermione joined the upper group, of course, then veered down and crashed unceremoniously into one of the common room's chairs.

A moment later Ron was hovering over her, asking anxiously if she had anything broken. She shook her head impatiently. "No Prewetts or Parrots. I did see Sarpan's parents, though; they're fine. I hope she sees that. Also a Mallory's dead, but I don't know if that's one of Seamus' relatives or not."

The crowd dispersed quicker this time, and Harry felt the urge to be alone, or at least out of the company of everyone who wasn't Hermione or Ron. "D'you think we could just take a turn down the corridor?" he asked. "I know it's a little late to visit Hagrid, but I want some fresh air."

Bless them, they didn't ask questions. Five minutes later the three of them were seated on a winding staircase, watching two stately old witches play bridge in one of the bigger paintings, which put Harry in mind of the planned portrait of Snape. For the first time he thought of the torment his presence might cause unwitting first-years in the Great Hall, or even the Entrance Hall. In fact, much as he now respected Snape, he kind of hoped if he was hung in the latter, he was put near the remainder of Fred and George's swamp...which was now to also be a memorial itself.

So beset by gloomy thoughts by all directions, it was as much to distract himself as anything else that he pulled the packet back out of his pocket and revealed the news. "The Ministry's getting generous," he said. "All three of us have been granted Top Box seats to all of England's games at the Cup."

Ron exclaimed his amazement, but Hermione's eyes immediately narrowed. "They want us out of the country," she said.

"What do you mean?" Ron asked. "Why would they want us gone now? We're heroes!"

"To the general public," said Hermione. "But as I said this morning, half the Ministry's going on trial, and well, it's a place where members tend to cover up for each other's wrongdoings and try to help each other escape justice. We're being sent to Australia so we don't show up at the collaborator trials."

"Surely we'll be called back!" said Harry. "People will want these people punished; there'll be prosecutors who will order us back. Besides, it'll probably be only three matches anyway-Ginny was right, England's in the Group of Death. Anyway, we don't have to go."

"Oh they'll want us back for the Death Eater trials," said Hermione. "I've got the feeling those won't start until after the group play's done anyway. When exactly is all this taking place anyway?"

"Group matches have a start time of 11 AM on June 14, 21, and 28, except in cases where the matches go six days or longer, in which case the next match for both teams involved is pushed back to three days after the snitch is caught. It'll be long after Umbridge's trial, anyway."

On hearing the dates, Hermione seemed to reconsider. "Well, I suppose we can see how it works out."

"Who knows," said Ron, "maybe they'll even pull a miracle and get out of group play. Crazier things can happen at the World Cup. It's all in Australia, I suppose."

"England's three group matches are all in the outback; don't know about the rest."

The three of them fell silent, giving themselves time to digest the news. Four years ago, the idea of seeing three whole Quidditch World Cup matches would have excited Harry beyond anything. But it had gotten harder to get excited over things since then. Maybe in another four years he'd feel differently about it.

But then, as they sat there, Pigwidgeon flew up to Ron, and very quickly all three realized the contents of the letter he was carrying. "Errol's dead, too," said Ron absently. "Died of old age a couple of months ago. Ginny told me today. He did well to last as long as he did."

Harry again thought of Hedwig. Then he remembered Percy's owl. Hermione beat him to it, "What about Hermes?"

"I think Percy sold Hermes. I don't know. But Pig's got new responsibilities. Hope you're up to them, Pig." The owl, not paying attention, and apparently not caring much if he had new responsibilities or not, perched onto Ron's shoulder and pecked at his robes. Ron ignored him as he grimly read the letter. "The funeral's in three days," he said. "They've managed to bring his body back home; it'll be a simple, Muggle-style funeral. That's kind of funny; I would've thought we'd cremate him. Mum says George has spent the past couple of days catching up on store paperwork; claims they'd gotten a bit behind, but she thinks he's deliberately going slowly with it, so it takes up more time."

"Ron," said Hermione gently, "you have to give him time."

He shook his head. "You really think if he's left alone for a few days that'll be it and he'll be okay again?"

"No, obviously it's going to take more than that."

"It's going to take the impossible is what it's going to take!" He was all but yelling now. "They were so close, and I don't know if he's ever going to be...I don't know if he can..."

"Ron," asked Hermione, very softly, "are you scared for him?"

Ron didn't answer at all. Instead he just stood up, ignoring Pigwidgeon's wild squawk as he was dislodged, drawing his arms to his chest as he stumbled down two steps. "Let's go back," he said. "I want to talk to Ginny."

At hearing her name, Pigwidgeon suddenly dove into his pocket and pulled the letter out. "Oh yeah," said Ron as he flew off ahead of them. "We both forgot it was addressed to her, too. Think he's still learning how to do this."

They found Ginny sitting near the windows, letter in her hand. It was the first time since he'd come back she looked at Harry and her face had shown absolutely no sign of anger or hardness. Even under the circumstances, he took hope from that, but now wasn't the time.

And then she asked, "How long are you going to be in Australia?"

Harry and Hermione looked at each other, uncertain what to say. Then Ron said, "Actually, we're not sure right now," and explained about the tickets.

"I see," said Ginny when he was finished. "Then if you're still there at the end of June, I want to join you."

Harry wanted to ask her why, but was afraid to speak. So Ron replied instead, smiling a little and saying, "Sure, if you really want."

**The Next Day**

The Prophet the following morning brought more trial dates, all still for Ministry collaborators. Most were people whose names Harry and Hermione didn't even recognize, and while Ron had heard of a couple of them from Bill and Fleur, he didn't really know much about them either. So nothing that actually involved them. It also had a few names of people determined to be dead overnight. Again noone they recognized.

No, the most stressful thing going on at the moment was merely that today they did have Transfiguration. Yesterday for Harry and Ron had consisted of Herbology, where they'd mostly learned about how to safely gather up and dispose of magical plants in greenhouses wrecked by battle, Charms, where Flitwick had reviewed very basic first-year spells, and Potions, where Slughorn had done similar. In fact, Harry had been kind of glad to hear that cleaning the greenhouses up would probably take the rest of the term. Those short hours yesterday shifting through the wreckage, hands and arms and legs and everything else getting dirty, had proved to be the easiest and most gratifying period of that day for him. But no doubt McGonagall would be as hard and demanding as ever, and he remembered almost nothing about how to do any kind of Transfiguration at the moment.

On the other hand, there was going to be at least one more piece of unpleasant business to be dealt with probably during lunch, which was when Ron expected another note from his family, saying when they were to go to the Burrow. He talked about this as the three of them searched out McGonagall's new classroom, since the old one had apparently been taken over by the Carrows, and the general feeling around the school seemed to be that noone wanted to be in there for at least a few months. "I don't think mum and dad realize, though," said Ron. "It's going to be a bigger deal than they think. Of course we're kind of used to big events in the family, since there are so many of us, but it's not just family who are going to want to come."

"Not everyone's accounted for yet, though are they?" asked Hermione. "And meanwhile, I think a lot of people who might have attended under regular circumstances might not be able to; they'll be too much putting their own lives back together."

But when they entered the classroom, immediately a Ravenclaw girl whom Harry believed was called Lisa Turpin came up to Ron. "Excuse me," she said, "I don't mean to be rude, or intrusive, or anything like that, but, well, I worked for your brother, and I heard the funeral for him was going to be..."

"It's in two days," he said. He sounded surprisingly hostile.

She noticed, and said hastily, "Oh, that's not what I was asking about. I only worked for them a very short time anyway; I had a summer job a couple of years ago. It's just that since it's before the term ends, me and some of the others who knew them a little, we were thinking we could have our own memorial. We were thinking about tomorrow originally, but I think we might do it the day of the funeral. You and your sister will going home for the funeral, of course, but, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you come? Just for a little bit? If you're only leaving Hogwarts on that day itself, I mean?"

"We'll have to leave early that day," said Ron. "Almost right after breakfast."

"The vigil would just be beginning then," said Lisa. "Maybe you could just come and say a couple of words before you go?"

"Where's it being held?" asked Hermione.

"We haven't decided yet," said Lisa. "We're thinking maybe by the lake."

"We could stop by, maybe," said Hermione. "On our way out."

Ron looked a little reluctant, but when he didn't actually say anything, Lisa said, "Just think about it, okay? I'll get back to you later. Bye." She went to sit down as McGonagall came in.

Everyone fell quiet, especially when they saw the grim look on her face. When she turned to face them, she said without preamble, "Ruth Hemmings has been found. She is currently in St. Mungo's. Her prognosis is uncertain."

There was a soft murmur through the class, and Ernie asked, "What happened?"

"I don't know," she said simply. "I'm not sure anybody knows. All I have been told is that she is very weak, has mostly been unconscious and has not responded to her surroundings when awake, and that she was alone when she was found."

The murmur had not died down, but McGonagall cut if off with a sharp motion of her hand. "I understand we're all worried, and this is a very great thing to take in. But please, take my assurance that I will tell you further news when I hear it. Meanwhile, we must go on with school business. If everyone will please take their books out and turn to page 708."

Ruth Hemmings turned out to be the talk of the school. It seemed everyone had known her, and most of them had liked her. When they came to the Great Hall for lunch, the Hufflepuff table was notably louder than the other three.

Hermione, however, kept her eyes upwards, as if she was expecting mail. When the other two noticed, she said, "I don't know why, but I have a strange feeling we're about to get hit by another twist."

But no owls came to greet them. Instead, Neville came up to them, and said, "Parvati and Padma are staying; they got the letter from their parents this morning."

"Someone should tell McGonagall that," said Hermione. "Sit and eat lunch with us."

"No, that's okay," said Neville, hastily backing away, which Harry thought was kind of strange.

So did Ron, who asked, "What, you don't want to eat with us?"

"Not today," said Neville, suddenly refusing to look at them.

"It's okay if you want to eat with someone else," said Hermione, "We don't mind."

"Thank you," said Neville very quickly, and fled with an almost bizarre haste.

"What's bothering him?" Ron wondered out loud as he plopped down next a pair of fifth-years at the far end of the table. "He's acting like he might have back when we were in our first year. You'd think he'd be past that by now."

"Probably just really wanted to talk to someone," said Harry, but that didn't entirely explain his behavior. He wondered if maybe it had to do with a girl, but he wasn't sitting with any down there, so maybe not.

"He's very popular now," said Hermione, and she sounded very pleased by it. "From almost the beginning of the year, and then especially once even Ginny had to go into hiding and he was just about the only person they could look to."

The mention of Ginny, of course, couldn't help but distract Harry. He looked around for her, and saw she was seated at another part of the table. She was actually with Dennis Creevey, who to Harry's eyes now looked smaller than he had ever been. She seemed to be demonstrating something to him that sent off tiny silver sparks from her wand.

Hermione saw where he was looking, and said, "She's really popular too, now. Not that she wasn't always liked, but it's even more now. Even Luna is, though of course she was only here until Christmas. I think she's doing very well with it, quite honestly."

"Yeah," said Harry. The fact that Dennis Creevey was now smiling probably meant a good deal, after all, but even if he hadn't seen her obviously helping him out, he would have assumed she would've done good from her new position in the school.

But for the first time, that made him worry about what would happen between the two of them as a result. Uneasily he found himself thinking a girl like her, so beautiful and talented, and one of the heros of the war to boot, could probably have any boy she wanted. Harry was aware girls went after him too, had been since the whole Yule Ball business in his fourth year. But when that had always been for the wrong reasons, he didn't think Ginny would take that much interest in who went after her in the same manner.

Though as he watched her wave at a pair of Hufflepuff boys he didn't recognize, he thought, for the first time, about the possibility of whom she might have met or grown close to over the year. They'd joked about there not being very many opportunities for him to meet other girls while wandering about on his quest, but the same hadn't exactly been true for her. That old presence in his chest suddenly seized up and started growling again at the thought that she might now have a new boyfriend.

But it didn't seem that likely, he thought a moment later. Surely if she did, he would have seen or heard something of him by now. With that reassuring thought, he relaxed. If she had new friends and new things in her life, he could get used to them. His life was going to be very different anyway.

No, the real question wasn't if there was room for him back in her life. It was if it suited her to have him there. Even if she did eventually forgive him for pushing her off this last year, she might want to do anything, and she really might not want a relationship at the moment. And even if she did, she might not want someone like him. Harry was becoming aware that some of the things he'd endured this last year, or even before that, some of the pains left in his heart, weren't going away so easily.

He hadn't sleep as peacefully that last night as he had before. Instead he'd had a nightmare where he'd been back in the cave where the fake locket had been hidden, and Snape had been clinging to the rocks as the snake savaged him, and Harry had been on the other side of the water and unable to help because the boat was being stolen by Griphook and he knew if he tried to steal if back the dragon would burst through the floor and Bellatrix might even come with it. Even after he'd woken up and reminded himself the snake and Bellatrix were dead and the dragon wouldn't burst through the floor, he'd felt tense for an hour, some part of him still believing Death Eaters were going to come charging through the door at any minute.

Ginny, he supposed, might have changed too there. In fact, that was the greatest fear of all, that he would still want her, and she would still want him, but when they looked at each other fully one of them would no longer see the person they wanted any longer.


	3. In a Wake

Harry had another nightmare the night before they were to leave Hogwarts for the funeral. This one involved Fred's corpse, and George trying to kill himself, and they were all trying to talk him out of it but Harry found his voice wouldn't work. As the tomb began to form around Fred, George ran to throw himself in. And then Ginny tried to grab him from behind, and Harry screamed for her to let go, that she'd get trapped in there with them, because George wasn't even slowing down from her weight. But she was still holding on as George leapt, and then he woke up.

After that he didn't get up immediately, but pressed his face into the pillow and raised his eyes to stare at the curtains for a minute or two. He remembered climbing into this bed that first night back for his second year, still made light by the admiration of their dormmates even if the evening in general hadn't been the pleasantest of experiences, and letting the relief too sink in, that a rather difficult day was over, that they hadn't been expelled, and they were here and all in one piece. It was the first time he'd become aware of how the dorm spoke of home to him, how this was the bed he wanted to sleep in every night. He wished he still had now the feeling of safety it had given him then.

He heard Ron getting up, heard him hastily shuffling around, because not for the first time, he'd left his packing for the last minute. Hermione had even hinted she'd come up there to help him. She hadn't come up when the other boys had been there before, but somehow Harry doubted they'd try to say anything to her about it.

But she wasn't really needed. By the time Harry forced himself up and pushed his curtains aside Ron was locking up the overstuffed trunk Mrs. Weasley had brought him from the Burrow; she'd brought Harry's and Hermione's too. "Hadn't had much to pack," he noted. "I didn't take much out." Though he still looked under the bed, just to make sure he hadn't missed anything.

Harry's own trunk had been packed the night before; he too hadn't taken much out. He looked over the dormitory as the nostaglia hit him harder. He thought of the early years, the talk and laughter, the late nights hastily doing last-minute homework. They all seemed pretty far in the past already, almost as if they had happened to another person. He sat there trying to recapture that feeling, from when he had been happy. He had the feeling he was going to need it that day.

Hermione was waiting for them down in the common room. Ginny was with her, which Harry supposed shouldn't surprise him, but he hadn't been prepared for her. She didn't look up as they came in, but he saw how red her face was, the paleness of her hands a sharp contrast as she rested them just beneath the soft cleft of her chin. He wanted to hug her and tell her it would be all right, because surely it had to be, eventually. It was all right for him now, with Sirius. But of course, he'd known Sirius only two years.

"They've already started the vigil by the lake," said Hermione. "There's no hurry, though. They'll be there all morning. I thought it might be better to go to breakfast early. We'll have people staring at us, so the less people there, the better."

He had to talk to Ginny on the way down. No matter how hard it was, no matter how much he wasn't ready yet, no matter how much he still had no idea what to say, he had to do it. Especially since by the time they got out of the common room, Ron and Hermione were walking in front of the two of them hand in hand, and giving Harry that feeling that he'd be an interloper if he tried to talk to them just then. He could not walk next to Ginny the entire way down without saying anything; he'd go crazy.

"How are you doing?" he asked. He wished he'd known already.

"All right," she said, though she didn't sound it. "What about you?"

If this had been a year ago, and if Ron and Hermione hadn't been there, he would've been able to tell her the truth. He would've been able to tell her about the nightmares and the nervousness that he shouldn't still have but wasn't going away. He wondered if this had ever happened to her after the whole thing with the diary.

And that brought up a sudden new question, and one that was pretty important too. Important enough that even with Ron and Hermione able to hear them he found himself asking it straight away: "Do you know the truth about the diary? What it really was?"

"An enchanted diary?" she asked, sounding very confused, as if it had never occurred to her it might be anything more, and then he felt a little ashamed that he hadn't thought to tell her this earlier. Yes, it had been a secret, but all the same she ought to have learned already just what had happened to her five years ago, what it was that she'd suffered at the hands of that year, and just what she'd faced and lived to tell the tale. She had been a victim of Voldemort in a way even he hadn't been, and she had the right to know these things.

"Okay," he said. "Ron and Hermione here already know, so I can tell you right now, or I can tell you later, if you want. Or," he thought another second, and he didn't like it but he shouldn't force his company on her just for her to learn this, "Ron or Hermione can tell you instead. Maybe Hermione should. She's read about these things, so she knows some things about them even I don't."

"Still," said Hermione, "There's a sort of way you can really explain it, Harry, that I can't."

"Why not?" said Ron. "You destroyed one same as he did."

"One what?" Ginny asked. "One diary? One memory? Wait a minute..." He saw it in her face when her brain made the connection. How often this past year had he thought of that expression of hers, when her cleverness was working. "Did this have anything to do with the diadem? No, you know what?" She came to a full stop; the three of them had to too. "Why don't all three of you tell me? Right here, right now. If someone comes by we can start walking again."

"Okay," said Harry, and then realized he didn't know where to start with the explanation. With the diary? With what horcruxes were? With the diadem?

Ron did instead: "The diary was a horcrux."

"A horcrux," Ginny repeated it, then said, "Wait a minute, I heard you use that word, Harry. You told...him they'd all been destroyed."

"They had," said Harry. "Neville destroyed the last one when he killed the snake."

"The snake?" That made Ginny look more confused. "I thought these things were objects. I mean, Ron said the diary was one, and, well, you said an object of Ravenclaw's..."

So Harry heard himself launch into the basic explanation of what horcruxes were, with Hermione chiming in with details from her books, including details about animal horcruxes Harry hadn't known about, and historical details, such as that the most famous, another book horcrux, had been created by Morgause, King Arthur's half sister and Mordred's mother (She hadn't really been wicked in the end, though she had done ill, and had eventually undergone the agonizing reunion process through her remorse, though centuries after her body had been destroyed, so she had fully died in the process.)

Ginny listened silent and still. When the three of them had all finished talking, she said, "Harry, did it ever occur to you that I was always perfectly capable of getting attacked on my own?"

"Sure," said Harry, because of course it had. "But still, the risk seemed greater..."

"Bugger greater," she snapped, and stalked off. Hermione took Harry's arm, though she didn't have to; he knew better than to try to follow her when she was in that kind of temper.

**Later That Morning**

Hermione clutched her copy of the _Prophet_ as they went outside, wrapped in their cloaks and Harry's glasses enchanted against an impending rainstorm; they could feel the air heavy with it. It was appropriate enough for the day, but it would be less than convenient when it came. Each of them carried a bag; their trunks would follow within a few hours.

What the rain would do to the vigil was hard to say, but when Harry, Ron, and Hermione approached the lake, the crowd they saw was huge. Too big, in fact, to organize themselves. Clutching their candles, they were spread out over the lake's edge, a few circles trying to form. Next to him, Harry heard Ron try to choke back a sob.

Several people noticed them, and told the people next to them, who told the people next to them. Most of the crowd was turned towards them by the time they got within speaking distance. Hermione nudged Ron a little bit forward of the other two, and all three of them halted.

Lisa Turpin emerged from the group and walked up to the group. "I'm glad all three of you came," she said. "It means a lot to all of us."

"Thanks," said Ron awkwardly, glancing over the group, maybe counting up familiar faces. The other Gryffindors from their year were all there, Neville prominent amoung them, with Dennis Creevey almost pressed up against him. "I'm, um, glad you cared enough about Fred to hold this kind of thing for him." He needed to say more, but Harry doubted he knew what else to say.

Hermione whispered something to him Harry couldn't quite catch, and he added, "We all appreciate it, my family and me. I mean, my mum wrote to me last night and said so, and that she wishes she could thank you all individually," but now he really couldn't go on, because his voice was getting too tight.

Then Neville looked past them, and called out, "Ginny!"

She had arrived, looking much taller from higher up with her traveling cloak fallen lightly around her. Her expression was almost elegant in its solemnity. She did not acknowledge Harry as she joined them, simply reached out to take her brother's hand and lead him further forward, down to Neville, whom she gave a tight hug, before saying, "Thank you especially. I know how much of this is because of you." He nodded, but looked far more embarrassed than was called for; it made Harry kind of sad to see that.

Then she kept on walking, taking Ron with her, all the way to the lake's shore, as Harry and Hermione made to follow her and properly join the group. Someone handed the two of them candles, and she lit then. When Dennis ventured up to Harry and Hermione holding up another pair of candles, they took them, and Hermione too lit them both with a single flick of her wand.

For a minute or so Ginny just stood there, over the water. Harry wasn't even sure when she started levitating the candle, though it rose fairly far above her, before a fountain of sparks from her wand followed in its path. Other candles followed, they too showering sparks. "Just focus on the flame," Hermione whispered to him. Harry obeyed as he sent his candle up, and as he too sent out a trail of scarlet and gold sparks, he felt almost a fusion between his body and his beloved wand, which he had only recently realized had truly become just an extension of his arm. In that moment, the feeling was more of a relief than he could describe.

"Tell us about Fred," said Lisa, and everyone looked at Ron and Ginny; they definitely wanted the two of them to talk while they were there.

Ron scrunched his face up and shook his head; he couldn't talk about it. But Ginny spoke: "Fred, along with George, was the part of our family that made us smile and laugh; even when the joke was on us we often would laugh with everyone else. He was especially good at it in these recent, harder times. I remember at the beginning of this year, when I had to go back to Hogwarts, knowing how much trouble there would be here with the Death Eaters in charge, he got me out of bed that morning with a chorus of foghorns that led me out of my bedroom and all around the house, up to the attic, where I found a pile of Skiving Snackboxes as a parting gift, and when he and George weren't too into offering the family too many freebies either. I believe they all found use here this autumn too." There was a giggle or two at that. "Without him," she concluded, "there will be a lot less laughter in my life, in all our lives. Our days will be a little less brighter, a little less cheerful."

She had walked a little more forward as she had spoken, until she stood on the very edge of the lake, so much so it looked like she might fall in at any moment. The wind played with the bright whisps of her hair, brushed them against her pale face. She seemed older then than Harry had ever seen her.

Again the attention was on Ron, but still he couldn't speak, and then Hermione said, "I am terribly sorry, but we must go catch our train."

"Thank you for coming," said Neville simply, and he too added, "It means a lot to us."

Indeed Harry had no doubt it did, but idly he wondered how much of that was because it honored Fred, and how much of it was because who the four of them and especially the three of them were. Still, considering how life was still weighing heavily on so many people, especially considering how many of them had lost friends and families of their own, he found he didn't mind that much.

**That afternoon**

Charlie picked them up in London and drove them home to the Burrow, a long drive in an apparently rented car where Ginny sat in the front seat and Harry, Ron, and Hermione crowded together in the back. He had news that Harry wished had been surprising: Fred was not to be entombed in the area. "They can't do it in the village, the Ministry insists; he was too famous," Charlie explained. "We try to put him in the Muggle churchyard, and the Muggles will continually find strange visitors showing up at their church."

"That means you're not going to be able to bury him today, I think," said Hermione.

"No," said Charlie. "They're going to carry him up special to London tomorrow morning; they have a graveyard for famous wizards and witches there. We can accompany them up there if we want to, of course, though there may be a limit to the number of people. Since I suspect we'll all end up being buried there, we probably should go see it."

"But there are a lot of wizards buried in the Muggle churchyard at Godric's Hollow," Harry couldn't help but point out. "Including my parents, and Dumbledore's mum and sister." Of course Kendra and Ariana Dumbledore had only been famous as Albus Dumbledore's family, but well, Charlie was talking as if he would be too famous too. That made Harry feel a little bad, because he was quick to realize they'd all be displaced from their graveyard mostly because of their association with him.

"Enough wizards live there to make it easier," explained Charlie. "At one point we even hoped...but four families in the area simply isn't enough, especially when the Diggorys are talking about moving. They haven't been happy here since..."

Something else occurred to Harry, though it took him a moment to get himself to ask. "Is Cedric buried in the area?"

"Yes," said Charlie. "He's in the local churchyard."

"Do you think there'll be time for us to go there?" He felt guilty for not thinking of it before, the summer before their sixth year. His head had been so full of so many other thoughts then.

"We can stop there while going through the village, actually," said Charlie. "If you want."

"Yes, let's," said Harry, and Hermione echoed it. Ron and Ginny didn't look as happy, but made no protest.

Charlie did not do the best parking job; he ended up in a space halfway across the church carpark from the one he'd meant to park in, and any car wanting to use the space next to it would've had to have been very thin. But the small carpark was almost empty anyway; there was no one outside the church.

Cedric Diggory's gravestone was certainly a grand one, taller than the ones around it and topped by a cherubic figure in robes-no wings, but the robes had a pair of knots around the shoulders that Muggles might mistake for the ends of wings broken off. On it was inscribed:

_Cedric Myrddin Diggory  
October 20, 1977-June 24, 1994  
Beloved Son  
Tri-W Champion_

"His father had a big fight with the Ministry over that last bit," said Charlie. "He wanted to write out the whole title, the Ministry didn't want anything about it in a Muggle graveyard. I think he accused to Ministry of trying to erase Cedric's position as tournament winner and recognize only you, Harry."

"Not very likely, given how the Ministry was treating Harry then," scoffed Ron.

"They weren't really paying attention at the time," shrugged Charlie. "In the end they compromised."

Harry knelt and traced the words. Seeing Cedric recognized for such a thing couldn't help but make him glad, but it felt kind of pitiful too.

"How many relatives do you have buried here, Charlie?" he heard Hermione ask.

"A lot," he said. "A handful of mum's relatives too, though her brothers are actually up in the London graveyard. We're hoping Fred can be put next to them."

He ended up leading toward to the large collection of gravestones, though on the way they paused for a moment when Ginny spotted the named of Lovegood as well. When Harry told them Luna's mother had died when Luna had been nine, they managed to identify her as _Ciara Rose Lovegood_. On her tombstone below _Beloved Wife and Mother_ was written _His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself which these dead had one time reared and lived in was dissolving and dwindling._

Harry was still absorbing that quote, wondering if Hermione might know where it came from, when Ginny cried, "Oh!" and they all looked to where she was pointing at a new arrival. Amos Diggory, too, had decided that day to visit the yard where his son was buried.

He looked over at them upon hearing her, and for a moment Harry thought they should turn away and leave him in peace. But then he started walking over. Charlie went out to greet him. Their first words were too quiet for the others to hear, but then he joined the rest of them. "Old Mrs. Lovegood's stone, eh?" was how he greeted them. "Well, maybe not that old in the end." He spoke absently, as if he had something on his mind even beyond his deceased child.

"I was just about to show them our own relations," said Charlie. "But if you want to be alone, we can always come back another day."

"No, that's all right," said Mr. Diggory. There were several moments' silence, during which he oddly just stood there and stared at Mrs. Lovegood's grave. Then he said, "This may sound strange, but I wanted someone to talk to when I came here. I shouldn't bother you about this kind of thing, but..."

"It's all right," said Hermione. "You can talk to us if you want to."

"Well," he said, slowly, as if he was having trouble coming out with it, "Victoria and I are thinking about having another baby."

"I see," said Hermione, which summed it up.

"We're not trying to replace him," Mr. Diggory added hastily. "Not really."

"I think," said Harry cautiously, "that if it made you happy to have another child, Cedric would want you to."

"Yes, he would," Mr. Diggory agreed. His voice was very soft. "Though would we move if we had one?"

"You could," said Ginny.

"I know," he said. "It's too much to think about. Thanks anyway, though." He walked off to his son's gravestone. Ginny moved to follow him, but Charlie gently took her arm, and she stopped, leaving him to himself.

"Let's go," Harry whispered to the others, and slowly they walked the other way, Charlie leading them at last to the Weasley gravestones, comfortably crowded together in one corner. "All our Uncles," said Ron. "And Great-Uncles and Great-Great-Uncles. No Aunts on father's side, actually, not since early last century. And there are our grandparents. Grandmum was blasted off the Black family tapestry; mum actually found on it where her name had been and showed us once."

When they reached the pair of stones, Harry noted they'd both died during the late 1970s. "Do you know if they were killed by Voldemort?" he asked.

Ron, Ginny, and Charlie looked at each other. "I got the impression once they might have been," said Charlie. "Certainly Fred isn't the first casualty of our family."

They looked at some more gravestones after that, ones dating back to the 19th century and beyond. Harry tried to pay attention to the names enough to remember them, but there were too many. Finally Charlie cited the time, and they piled back into the car.

It was probably something of a miracle that the Burrow still stood. In her letter to Ron, Mrs. Weasley wrote that she, Mr. Weasley, and the older brothers had returned there the afternoon after the battle to discover parts of the property had been burnt, as had been the garage, the broomshed and chicken coop had also both been damaged, and the house itself had been ransacked and amoung other items half the furniture removed. But for whatever reason those dark wizards who had taken it hadn't destroyed it; it was still standing and still eminently habitable.

And while the earth around it was scorched in places and covered with debris in others, it even looked pretty much the same from the outside as Harry remembered. The flutterby bushes were even still there, though they looked pretty gnarled and weren't moving around that much.

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Bill, Fleur, and Percy all came out to greet them as Charlie parked, which, when they got out, immediately had Ron asking, "Where's George?

"Upstairs," said Mrs. Weasley, very softly. "Don't..." she added as Ron immediately went running towards the house, but that just caused Hermione to run after him, and when she reached him it was clear that she was accompanying rather than stopping him. Harry and Ginny both went to follow them, but Bill grabbed them both. "You two can go in later if you want, if they can't get him downstairs," he said softly. "But all four of you will probably overwhelm him and cause him to shut inward. We've made that mistake already."

So instead Harry and Ginny, with her pointedly not looking at him so he didn't try to talk to her, followed her mother in, and on her instruction started helping out with the cleaning. All the furniture and large items still in the house had been put back into place, and the kitchen and about half of the living room were completely in order, but the corners of the latter room still had broken glass and loose rubble, and the other rooms and the stairs were in much worse shape. Harry threw himself into the cleaning with a zeal that he could tell impressed Mrs. Weasley, but he was glad to; it was like cleaning out the greenhouses that way.

George did come down with his brother and Hermione in the end, said hello to Harry and even hugged Ginny. But his presence seemed to make it impossible for anyone to really talk. He was saying as little as possible, and everyone seemed to feel awkward trying to talk with him there. By the time dinner was served, and Harry's level of respect for Mrs. Weasley, though already extremely high, went up higher still with how she managed when he knew she didn't have much in the kitchen, everyone had fallen almost completely silent.

But when the meal was half complete, Mrs. Weasley asked him, "George, are you going to be able to get through tomorrow?"

It took George a few seconds to answer, which felt like much longer to everyone else. Harry wondered if he might never be able to answer that question at all. Then he said, "Just don't ask me to talk. Please."

"We won't, then," said his mother. "I promise."

Somehow, when going upstairs, Harry ended up standing in front of the door to Ginny's room just after she'd gone in. He thought of that day a year ago when she'd brought him in there, what had happened then, and what he had long realized would probably have also happened had they not been interrupted. He hadn't even thought about it much back then. He knew people thought it was weird that a boy his age wouldn't, but he'd had way too much else to think about. But now, when he looked at that door, he thought about how it might be nice, just to have her in his arms again, to have that kind of contact with her body; to find some warmth and comfort in a cold and hard night. The thought of it raised a deep ache within him.

But then Ron and Hermione came up the stairs behind him, and found him there. Ron narrowed his eyes, for obvious reasons, but before he could say anything Hermione said, "Come on. Your room, Ron. All three of us tonight. Just to sleep."

Had he been less worn Harry might have protested; he didn't want to impose on their relationship. But when they both even took one of his arms and they three of them walked on together, all he could feel was relief, that that night he would not be alone.

Like most of the bedrooms, Ron's room had a bed intact, clean, and made up, but was a mess everywhere else. Hermione pulled out her wand, flicked it to send various pieces of debris swishing out of the way, and muttered a charm that increased the size of the bed until it would comfortably hold three. "I'll go change and come back in," she said, and left them to change themselves.

It was really awkward then, without her resolve to blunt their embarrassment. Ron didn't look at Harry as they changed, and Harry didn't feel much like looking at him either. But he really was tired, so he went and lay himself down on the bed. Ron sat down next to him, not touching, which was how Hermione found them when she returned in a long nightgown.

"It really does help to have someone with you," she said to them, very matter-of-factly. "Ron and I have napped a bit in the Room of Requirement together, and we've both slept better that way. It'll be better once Ginny forgives you, but until she does, this is the best we can do. Up, both of you; we should unmake the bed."

"This is still weird," said Ron, but the both got up, and when Hermione pulled the blankets up, they both got in, not touching, but lying very close. She settled herself then on Ron's other side, sighed as his arms wrapped around her. Harry let himself turn to face them, until he could feel the warmth of Ron's body on his face. Then Hermione managed to aim a pointed look at him even over Ron, and, very hesitantly, Harry found himself moving forward and reaching out with his arms, and Ron made no protest, until Harry's hands reached Hermione's shoulders, and he let himself relax, and let himself lay against the two of them.

It worked. He fell asleep much more quickly than he had, and he didn't dream at all.


	4. Mourners

The graveyard had a large space for mourners to assemble, and it was packed to the gills. A number of the relatives who had showed up to Bill's wedding were there, but Harry thought there were noticeably less of them. Some of them just might have just gone to the wedding for the fun of it and not cared to attend a funeral, but he thought it likely some of them were dead. There were other people too, members of the Order, and then still more people of whom most he didn't recognize.

At least they were able to bury Fred by his two uncles, but for the most part the funeral had the same problem Dumbledore's had of being too solemn. That had been only a small problem in the old headmaster's case, but in Fred's was a much bigger one. Had George been the one speaking it might have helped, but Mrs. Weasley had promised he wouldn't have to, and she spoke in his stead, and she didn't even properly talk about what he'd done with his life, just generally about his creativity and how he'd always been able to make everyone smile even in the hardest times. Harry wished Ginny would've gone up and said what she'd said at the Lake the previous day, but she didn't. He wondered how many people would yell at him if he declared someone had to set a dungbomb off just to make it more appropriate. Though that probably would've been disrespectful to everyone else buried in the graveyard, so maybe not.

The very end was better though, when the actual entombing happened. Instead of the kind of fire that Dumbledore's body had transformed with, Fred's body dissolved into multicoloured confetti, and the air was filled with a sound like that of crackers going off. When the gravestone appeared, several abnormally large canaries settled on top of it. Harry hoped they stayed there as long as possible.

Mrs. Weasley burst into tears afresh. Mr. Weasley pulled her into an embrace and let her bury her face in his chest. George turned and walked off fast. Harry saw Ginny follow him more slowly, probably just to keep him in her sight. On Ron's other side, he could hear Hermione whimpering.

He looked back over the crowd, and suddenly locked eyes with Andromeda Tonks, sitting there with little Ted on her lap, talking with a man who he spent a moment or so thinking looking vaguely familiar, before realizing he reminded him of Professor Lupin. She beckoned.

He was happy to get up and walk over. He wasn't entirely sure what this godfathering business would entail, since he was quick to realize it was probably best for Ted to live with his grandmother, but he should probably take advantage of any easy opportunities to see him like this one.

Both Andromeda and the man stood up to greet him, her shifting the sleeping Ted, and as Harry, after extending Andromeda his condolences, found himself shaking hands with the latter, he asked, "Are you..."

"His name is Lyall Lupin," said Andromeda. "Remus was his son. He's Ted's other surviving grandparent."

"Very pleased to meet you," said Lyall Lupin. "Remus told me a bit about you, about how you were the best student in his class when he taught at Hogwarts." He didn't look that old, but he looked worn far beyond his years, not unlike how his son had been that way.

"Lyall has been living up north," said Andromeda, "but now he'd considering coming down south to be near us and be more involved in Ted's upbringing."

"That's good," said Harry, though privately he wondered why this was the first time he had even so much as heard the man's name, where he'd been during his son's constant trials and tribulations, during those two years after he'd had to resign from Hogwarts and had apparently been unable to get a job afterwards because of Umbridge. He'd assumed because of the lack of mention of parents that they had both been dead.

Lyall Lupin's next words did assuage some of these issues, when he said, "I'd be glad to do it. I'm afraid my son always let me do far too little for him during his adult life."

"We're trying to figure out the practicalities of it," Andromeda continued. "Where he'll live, if he'll work anywhere, that sort of thing."

Ron and Hermione hadn't initially followed Harry over, but they were joining him now. Introductions and exchange of condolences were done again, and Lyall even repeated to Hermione his words about hearing praise about her from his son. "Really, he was impressed with all three of you," he said. Hermione turned pink, but Ron looked a little skeptical, which pained Harry, but he wasn't sure what he could do about that.

Especially not when it was then that Ted woke up and started crying, really, really loudly. Watching a baby metamorphagus have a crying fit was arguably interesting, given how many colours his hair tried to turn at once while his hands and feet got really big and his mouth definitely got bigger too. Not that any of them had time to appreciate it, as Andromeda tried multiple ways to sooth him, from simply stroking, to making milk stream out of her wand, which he didn't seem interested in drinking. Finally Hermione pointed her wand, and when his grandmother nodded permission, she muttered, _"Tranquillus,"_ and the baby calmed down. "You shouldn't do that too often," she commented.

"Thanks anyway," said Andromeda. "Listen, do you think you'd like to stay with me and Ted during the trials? Of course you've got your house, Harry, but I think you might like mine better."

"We definitely would," agreed Harry.

"Good," she said. "I've had to be preparing extra guest space a lot recently, so don't worry about that. But, um, I assume I'll have to prepare two spaces?" She looked at Ron and Hermione as she asked this, and Hermione nodded, as Ron just turned red.

**Late that afternoon**

"Has word spread that quickly?" Hermione wondered when the three of them got a moment alone, back in the Burrow, with the smell of dinner cooking downstairs, and the house feeling very unnaturally quiet. "I mean, we haven't even told anyone yet-you didn't tell anyone, did you Ron?"

"No," said Ron, "though I think Ginny may have figured it out anyway, the way she was looking at the two of us the day after...everything happened."

The mention of Ginny made Harry feel an urge to talk to her, and he found himself asking, "Do you two need to be alone? If you need to figure out what you're going to do about telling people?"

"Yes, that sounds like a good idea," said Hermione, and Ron nodded too.

"Just tell me what you decide on," said Harry as he headed out, and they nodded again before he closed the door behind him and started walking quickly, partly because he didn't want to accidentally overhear anything, and partly because the urge to find and speak to Ginny was getting stronger.

Luck was with him; when he glanced outside, he saw her alone, standing over one of the flutterby bushes, using her wand to make the branches unbend, though for the moment they stayed still. "Need help?" he called to her as he stepped out.

She hesitated, and he nearly retreated. But then she said, "Yes, thank you. The second bush is moving a bit too much to do this easily. Could you keep it immobilized while I work on it?"

They worked in silence. She didn't look at him. He couldn't take his eyes off her. He'd always liked to watch her cast spells; in retrospect, he thought he'd even watched her do so a little more than he'd watched the others even at DA meetings. He loved seeing her brown eyes intensify in color, even the pupils growing shiny, almost as if the magic coming out of her suffused them. Her wand, spruce and phoenix feather, was slightly longer than his, despite her being shorter, and engaged in quick whips through the air as she flicked it about. When he looked closely, there always seemed to be a bit of a spark coming out of it even when she wasn't actually casting anything. There was a little bit of a breeze outside, just enough for strands of her fire-bright hair to caress her cheeks and brow.

When she was done, she said, "I still feel the way about you I always have. I can't stop. For years mum told me sooner or later I'd stop even if I didn't want to, but..."

They had never talked about feelings like this, Harry thought, at least not so directly, though they'd come close during Dumbledore's funeral. It was a little scary, even after all he'd been through, but it felt right to. They were adults now, much more so than most people their age, and he was now aware that if they worked this out, that could easily mean things like marriage and building a life together. "My feelings haven't changed either," he therefore said, and with those words he felt a long-standing knot in his chest ease. "I never wanted to leave you, and if you can forgive me..."

"I think I can," she said, but she still wasn't looking at him. Then she added, "But I slept with Neville once, and two more boys twice. And I'm not sorry."

For a moment the knot in the chest came back, the old monster threatening to wake back up. But it was a muffled echo of what it had been once, not enough to drown out his head reminding him he had no right to get mad; he'd let her go, after all. In fact, his main thought after a moment or so was that explained too much about Neville's behavior, and he'd have to talk to him and tell him he'd done nothing unforgivable.

So he just said, "I think I still did worse to you."

"You did," she agreed. "And you're going to have to start making up for it right now. No," she added as he leaned in, "kissing me won't help. We can do that a little later, maybe. Also I want you to understand right now that I would like you to come to my bedroom tonight, if you can sneak around mum, but we are not having sex, because I am not up for it tonight."

"I'm not either," said Harry, because the funeral really had thoroughly drained everyone. Though even in his current state, something very deep in his body jumped a little at the thought, that sooner or later that was definitely going to happen.

"Good answer," she said, and clasped his hand. That made him aware of how sweaty his own was, probably cold with it, but hers wasn't dry either, though it was very warm, possible still from all the magic she had just been doing. "Let's go in; mum's probably going to call us to dinner pretty soon."

**Evening**

Mrs. Weasley had actually stayed in London a little longer than anyone else so she could really replenish her kitchen, and that night was comparable to a Hogwarts feast. Still a little bit of gloom hung over the table. George now needed no one to bring him downstairs, but Harry didn't think he saw him smile once. His parents both spent most of the meal watching him, as if they could somehow through parental love make him happy again. Bill and Charlie sat on either side of him, and of all of them tried to get him talking, about the joke shop and how sales were increasing in the wake of the war's end (which had at least kept him busy up in his room the last few days). But then he started talking about how word of Fred's death had spread around their customers, and a lot of them were writing or even showing up at the store to offer their condolences, often without even buying anything, and that made him look like he was about to cry again.

He wasn't the only one who had had a lot of correspondence over the last couple of days. Percy had also been receiving owls, mostly from Ministry colleagues, and as well as condolences they were bringing him news. It was from him that night that they learned the details were nearly hashed out for Umbridge's trial, but that things were getting complicated because she was asking for an advocate.

"But shouldn't she have one?" Hermione asked. When several people gave her looks, she said, "Believe me, I think she's the most horrible person I've ever met. But everyone who goes on trial should have the right to someone who has experience with the law, shouldn't they? I mean, I always thought it wrong they didn't get Harry one, and that was when we thought he was just having a small hearing with Amelia Bones. And think about what would've happened to him then, if Dumbledore hadn't come in to save the day, if he hadn't managed to get Mrs. Figg there, and argue the court out of doing what Fudge obviously was trying to get them to do. Now, I know there weren't any advocates at the trials last time around. I've read more than enough to know that, especially after Sirius told us that he didn't even get a trial, and wasn't the only one. But that's just the point; it was done all wrong last time. We should do it right this time."

She had made Mr. Weasley look very grave, and he fixed his gaze on Percy as he said, "There are definitely things that could be done this time. I'm not sure, from a practical standpoint, how many of them are doable, but some of them should be if we have enough people working with us. What happened last time truly was very bad, but that time You-Know-Who had been around longer and recruited more covert accomplices in the Ministry departments and such, rather than just trying to take over from the top the way he did this time. Also of course there was Barty Crouch being in charge of it. Hopefully whoever runs it this time won't go as far as he did. From what I've heard, anyway, everyone's going to get at least a trial this time."

"That's a good start," said Hermione. "But who's in charge? Do you know?"

"Don't think it's been decided yet. It probably should be while you three are in Australia. I think there are two members of the Bones family under consideration, and I know Sturgis Podmore is campaigning for it-he would definitely be very careful not to go too far after those six months in Azkaban. Probably some others too."

"If Harry put his voice behind Sturgis Podmore," mused Hermione, "do you think it would help?"

"No," Harry said, hastily, before Mr. Weasley could respond. "I'm not doing that. I'm not getting involved in that kind of Ministry business, especially not by just throwing my name around like that."

"But Harry," Hermione protested, "surely you understand how this thing needs to be done right. Yes, you've had one hard task you had to do for the world, but the way I see it, that task's not over until all the wrongdoers are sent to their fates. And haven't we already decided we're going to appear and testify at Umbridge's trial, when we know exactly what that's likely to do?"

"That's different," Harry protested.

"Really, Hermione," Ron added, "do you want us to not testify about Umbridge? I think they'll need us at least for the bit where she pinned Moody's eye on her door. They might even insist it needs to be exhumed, and we're the only ones who know where it is."

"She pinned Alastor's eye on her door?!" asked a horrified Molly, which meant the story had to be told of how Harry had found it there. It was already known they'd invaded the Ministry of Magic that day, but they hadn't really told anyone the details and especially not why they'd done it, so they ended up telling the whole story. Though they managed to avoid all the details about Horcruxes, merely explaining that Umbridge had, through a complicated set of events, ended up with a necklace they'd needed to destroy to defeat Voldemort. Harry didn't know why, exactly, but that wasn't something he was up to telling everybody about just yet. Though he did catch Ginny's eye, as he gave his brief explanation of why the necklace was important, and saw from her nod that she understood the rest.

This took much of the rest of dinner, and got them off the subject, as they talked further of Harry, Ron, and Hermione's adventures. Hermione tried a couple of times to take the conversation back to the trials, but noone else really wanted to talk about it, and she was forced to give up. Harry had the feeling she wasn't done yet, though, that she was probably going to corner him and Ron both at some point, and probably some other people too.

Mrs. Weasley insisted that George do the dishes with her, and they both spent so long in the kitchen that she ended up not being the problem when it came to trying to join Ginny in her room. That was instead Ron, at least after Harry, without thinking, sat in the chair next to Ginny's and accepted her tentative smile, and he suddenly came over and sat next to them and looked at them in such a way as to make clear if either of them went upstairs he'd make a point of going with them. It was a bit hypocritical of him, Harry thought, considering he'd already done more with Hermione than he and Ginny even planned to do that night, but that was an argument he was not up to having with his best friend at all.

It was Ginny who took care of it instead. When a little less than an hour after dinner the conversation turned to who was likely to make various British teams for the World Cup, Ginny started telling them about a certain Niniane Cemout, who had been touted by the Ministry during the past year as an example of what talents a pure enough bloodline could produce, although this was apparently due to the behavior of her parents rather than she herself. "She rarely gave quotes of her own at all before You-Know-Who fell," she said, "and now she's been quick to repudiate everything they said."

"Well of course she's been," Ron scoffed. "That doesn't mean anything."

"Still," said Ginny, "technically she's done nothing wrong, and it's not nice that the Tornadoes are shopping her around like crazy, and none of the other teams even want her. Though there's a rumour the Cannons actually might go for her. Would you cheer for her if they did, Ron?"

Ron shrugged. "It won't happen. The Cannons never get those kinds of players anymore, not even if they have bad reputations off the pitch."

"But anyway," Ginny continued, "the _Prophet_'s got people on both sides writing about whether or not she should be named to the team. If it wasn't for this she really would be a lock; she's that good. I've actually got both articles upstairs, if you want to look at them."

It worked; the two of them went upstairs, and ten minutes later Ron returned to announce that Ginny had decided to turn in. Harry wondered afterwards if Ginny had talked to Hermione, because not long after that she asked Ron if he'd be willing to step outside with her for a moment. He remained worried about whether it was a good idea to be only the second person to go to bed after Ginny, but lucky for him Percy took care of that, standing up only a minute or so after Hermione and Ron had gone out and announcing it was time for him to go to bed as well. When Harry did the same about five minutes later, there was no response besides a couple of murmured "Good night"s.

Heading up the stairs for the first couple of minutes was actually the first time that day Harry felt completely relaxed and free from all cares. It was good to have his world narrow down to the creak of a staircase he still knew well. But it was a short-lived relief, when he got close enough to her room to hear what was unmistakably Ginny crying.

That made him run the rest of the way and throw her door open without knocking, he only remembered not to shout and alert everyone downstairs about where he was in a nick of time. He found her under the covers, in her nightgown, and when he sat down next to her on the bed she weakly rolled over towards him. "Sorry," she gasped through more tears, "it's just...it's just..." She continued to struggle with it.

"Fred?" he asked, and she nodded. "It's all right," he said, though he wasn't sure that would help. After another moment, he took off his socks and shoes and climbed into the bed with her, and he felt that did help, when he had her in his arms and she burrowed into them, and slowly her sobs quieted.

**Very Early the Next Morning**

He woke up very much the same way he had woken up the previous day, when Hermione getting out of the bed had woken up him and Ron both. He shifted uncomfortably in his clothes while he tried to get his bearings, then looked up to see Ginny pulling clothes out of her drawers. Vaguely he recalled from previous times staying in the Burrow that she always seemed to shower early, so at first he didn't even bother say anything, just watched her.

But then she had her clothes in her hands, and she wasn't moving, just standing by the dresser, staring at what seemed to be a random spot on the wall. He had no doubt she was thinking about Fred again, and on impulse he got up and pulled her into another hug. "I wonder if it ever feels better," she said. "Maybe I should go visit the Diggorys and ask them?"

Harry considered it, then observed, "They might not like that."

"I might do it anyway. Maybe the whole family should go over. Or maybe just mum. She and Mrs. Diggory are still good friends, though I don't think they see as much of each other as they did before Cedric was killed. And You-Know-Who came back, so we were all busy too...but now that we're not anymore..." She sighed, and very gently pulled away. "You should probably sneak back to Ron's room. Mum wouldn't be happy if she found you in here."

"I think, um, Hermione might be in there, though."

"Then tell her to sneak back, too. Mum wouldn't be happy with that either."

Harry couldn't argue with that. He wondered if he might be allowed to kiss her goodbye, especially since despite her earlier suggestion, between her crying the previous night and this current wake-up, they actually hadn't gotten around to doing any kissing yet. But by the urgent way she was looking at him and the door, he figured probably not.

If Hermione had been with Ron his room the previous night, she'd realized the need to sneak away earlier. Harry found only Ron htere, clutching the bedclothes in the way he did when he was fully awake, but really didn't want to get up. Which would've been fine, because it wasn't like any of them had anything to do that morning. Except that Ron, when he was doing this, usually wasn't wearing an expression which indicated he was in dread of opening his eyes. It was the same thing that was afflicting Ginny, of course, but here Harry didn't know what he could do about it.

He still hadn't figured anything out when the ghoul started hammering through the ceiling, louder and longer than Harry could remember him doing in the past. It started out unsettling, then as it went on and on, and he started moaning very loudly too. Harry felt himself grow tenser, struggle to remind himself that the ghoul had never broken through the ceiling or attacked anyone, but had in fact been very cooperative while posing as Ron this past year. He was just about to go up to the attic and do something when Ron, who had been stubbornly clinging to his blankets all the tighter, gave up and pulled himself up. "Mum warned me he wasn't happy with having to move back to the attic," he commented. "You know, I used to not care how loud he got. I got used to it, you know? And I really shouldn't mind it now. But somehow, I do. It just isn't easy to sleep through noise anymore, and I don't even know why."

That was when Harry was forced to really face the truth: the Burrow wasn't the place for them anymore. It wasn't even exactly for one specific reason. But the idea of spending more than a few weeks here, having to sneak in and out of each other's rooms all the time, probably failing to sleep through all the noise, most of the house bringing back some memory of the past few years, or of Fred, everyone in pain and noone really knowing how to make it better...when he thought about it, Harry very quickly realized he wouldn't be able to stand it. And he suspected Ron and Hermione might not be able to either, even before he asked quietly, "What about Hermione? Did she have any trouble sleeping through it?"

Ron blushed, since this was the first time they'd ever directly talked about the fact that he and Hermione were sleeping together. He'd noticed too how Ron had not asked him where he'd slept the previous night; it seemed he wasn't going to go that route. But he answered, "Actually, yes, she did. But she didn't grow up with it."

They didn't have to have to this conversation now, Harry reminded himself, and he wasn't sure Ron would react well to the suggestion anyway. It could wait until after they came back from Australia.

For now, they fell back in with the girls as they went down to breakfast. Most of the Weasleys still seemed to be either asleep or still in their rooms; they found the living room deserted. But when they stepped into the kitchen they found Percy at the table. The heavy set of him and the rings around his eyes were enough to make Harry dead certain he hadn't slept at all the previous night. He was familiar enough with that sight.

For a moment he wasn't sure what he should say, or for that matter if he should say anything at all. But then Percy said, ghostily, "If I'd done things different, would Fred still be alive?"

"I doubt it would've made much difference," said Hermione gently. "If you'd taken our side and refused Fudge, he would've just found someone else, and from there things probably would've proceeded exactly as they had."

"Unless," Ginny said, hesitant for only a moment, before continuing on, "Percy, did you ever make any big suggestions that they took? I mean, like that whole appointing Umbridge as Hogwarts High Inquisitor level of big?"

For the split second he was silent, Harry very badly hoped Percy would shake his head. But his response, his voice unchanging was, "The Inquisitorial Squad was my idea. I didn't approve of the rules for the Prefects changing the way they had the previous year anyway, and I thought...I'm not even sure what I thought anymore." Another split second, then, "I thought the world was going crazy."

"It must have occurred to you," Ginny said slowly, "that things being as they were, this would end up getting giving power to the Slytherins."

"No, it honestly didn't," he protested. "I suppose I wasn't really paying attention enough. Well, I knew the Ministry wasn't happy with Gryffindor House in general and apparently Umbridge wrote Fudge at one point to say she thought that house was the source of all the trouble, but still...I didn't realize how things were, not to that extent."

Harry didn't know whether to offer his forgiveness or not. Though he was tired of being angry anyway. He was immensely relieved when Hermione said, "It's all the past. The Inquisitorial Squad caused a lot of misery to various students, but that's all; it didn't do anyone any permanent damage. It certainly didn't make any different in the way the final battle went."

"That was the biggest thing I did, then," said Percy. "I don't even really remember most of what else I did. After Fudge went out I wasn't really doing much anyway, especially not once the Death Eaters took over. But now…" He took a deep breath. "Mr. Shacklebolt talked to me at the funeral yesterday. He wants me to take charge of one of the departments; he's not sure which yet. He says I'm someone he feels he can trust to both be good at the job and to not try to sweep all the collaboration of the higher officials under the rug."

"That's good, Percy," said Hermione. "Isn't that what you've always wanted?"

"It was, once," said Percy. "Back when I was sure there was no way I wouldn't be worthy of it. I'm not sure of that anymore."

"You'll feel differently," Ginny told him, maybe a bit chidingly, but mostly gently. "I really think you will."

"Especially," Hermione agreed, "if you think about what I said last night. If Shacklebolt puts that much trust in you, you can make a big difference. Just think about it, all right?"

After a moment, Percy nodded. "We should have breakfast, I think," he said, and started to get up.

But Hermione shook her head. "You're in no state to cook," she said. Harry wondered if the four of them were either, though. Maybe she did too, as she stared into the kitchen for another moment, before saying, "Let's see what's in the breadbox."

Breakfast ended up being slices of bread, mostly well-toasted but with bits of it slightly singed (mostly by Ginny, who was amazed at how good at that kind of basic cooking the three of them had gotten while out in the wild), drunk down with a juice Harry was too tired to identify but tasted good, if a little stale. It revived Percy enough that he largely cleaned up for them afterwards. He was just finishing when Mrs. Weasley walked in. She actually looked worse than she had the previous day, heavily deflated, and very, very tired. Harry had never seen her look like that when all her children had still been alive. It made him feel guilty over the thoughts he had earlier that morning, that he and Ron and Hermione and Ginny really ought to leave her roof.

Especially when she said, "So, you'll be flying to Australia soon?"

"Yes, Mrs. Weasley," said Hermione. "And we may go back there again later."

"I know," she said. "Ron told me about the World Cup tickets."

"I wonder if maybe we could get tickets for anyone else," Harry said. "I mean, your husband was able to get really good ones for the final last time anyway, right?"

"Well it's different when you're hosting it," said Percy. "Still, it might be done, at least if we bring your name up. Although I'm afraid most of the tickets for sale have almost certainly long been purchased by now."

"Still," said Mrs. Weasley, "are you sure you want too big a crowd around the three of you? It would attract more attention."

"Oh, that kind of attention's unavoidable anyway, I think," sighed Harry. "At least now." And at least a little for the rest of his life too, but that had been happening since he'd first entered the wizarding world. He was holding out hope, at least, that eventually his fame and ability to attract attention would decrease down to its old level. It would probably take a few years, but maybe ten or fifteen might do it.

Until then, he nodded in agreement as Hermione added, "I think be might as well just bear it then. I don't know how convenient it might be for you all to come to Australia for that long, but when you can. You're coming at the end of June, right, Ginny?"

"That's right," she said, and Mrs. Weasley nodded; obviously her daughter had already talked to her about this. "Or maybe earlier…but probably not."

Perhaps she really did want to take things slow with him. That was okay, Harry thought. He'd made her wait a year, after all, and she'd waited it. He could return the favor if she really wanted him too. Though it did make him a little sad that they'd be going to Australia so quickly, and so soon he'd be without her, at least for a little while.


	5. To Australia

The day before their trip to Australia may have been a hectic one, but even so, the entire family, which included Bill and Fleur, who were there and helping out, turned up to sit in front of the radio at one in the afternoon to hear the announcement of England's World Cup roster. Though Hermione, while sitting there, might have been paying less attention to her surroundings than to the maps she'd been constantly studying since Fred's funeral. A couple minutes beforehand Charlie switched the radio on, on the tail end of a voice saying, "…a problem with his broom, but apparently that's just about sorted and he's close enough it should only be a couple more minutes…"

But before they could even hear who the announcer was talking about, a female voice interrupted, "Sorry to interrupt you, Crius, but we have breaking news, and it's crazy that this is happening now, but it's happened. Niniane Cemout's been traded to the Cannons! No word on who or what she's been traded for yet…"

"Probably Valentin Kodov," said Ron darkly.

"Still," said Ginny, "now you have to decide whether or not you're willing to cheer for her."

"…be easily the best player on the Cannons' roster," Crius was commenting. "That's the quick thing we can say about this. We'll have a lot more to talk about regarding this news later, of course. But for now, I believe Leopold van Vergy has just landed, and he'll be making his way into the auditorium and we'll have the announcement. Hey, Pete, you're on site; how would you judge the broom-handling skill of England's national coach?"

"While I think we all agree he can work on his speed," said a younger voice, presumably Pete's, "that was a very smooth landing, and the best dismount you can imagine; he went right from sitting on the broom to a handsome brisk walk. Of course he likely wants to make up for time lost, and, looking at the skies here, doesn't want to linger outside either. We'll go inside the auditorium now, where team manager John Shimmer is with Laurel Brownstown, who right now is acting head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports-they really do need to appoint a permanent department head for that one, if some of the rumours we're hearing are true-and they're waiting for van Vergy to join them." As they spoke the audio from the auditorium came in; they could hear applause.

"Rumours?" asked Fleur softly. And they saw her look quizzically at Mr. Weasley. He ignored her gaze.

Ginny didn't, asking, "Have you heard something?"

"Well," Fleur hesitated, before saying, "at ze funeral, Gabrielle said zo me zat everyone at Beauxbatons is-"

But at that point Charlie shushed them, as van Vergy had reached the stage, and they could hear him speaking, "…the end of this very difficult time period. I hope we can put behind us, and move forward with our lives. I also know that some hard days still are ahead, and all of our thoughts, of course, are with all those families in Britain, right now, who are mourning the loss of a loved one, or waiting anxiously to hear news of someone missing. If in these days, our Quidditch team can provide you with a bit of cheer, a reason to smile, than we shall not be playing in vain, whatever our result." There was a small amount of applause.

"And now," said another male voice, which Harry thought was probably John Shimmer, "without further ado, we announce the team for the Quidditch World Cup, starting with the main team. Our three main Chasers: Katherine Bell, currently playing for the Falmouth Falcons, Niniane Cemout, currently playing for the Tutshill Torna-huh?" a pause while the news was presumably whispered into his ear, "excuse me, apparently now playing for the Chudley Cannons," another pause while the audience reacted to the news, more than loudly enough to be heard, "and Marcus Flint, also currently playing for the Falmouth Falcons."

Several cries of outrage were heard in the Weasley family room at the last one. "Flint over Angelina?" sighed Ron. "Who'd he bribe?"

"Hopefully she'll be on the reserve team," said Ginny, as the announcement continued.

"Our two main Beaters: Dawn Withey, currently playing for the Moose Jaw Meteorites, and Indira Choudry, currently playing for the Quiberon Quafflepunchers. Our main Keeper: Merwyn Finwick, currently playing for the Tutshill Tornadoes. And our main Seeker: Blythe Parkin, currently playing for the Wigtown Wanderers."

"Three members of the 1994 team back," Crius observed in the pause, just in case anyone hadn't known that, before Shimmer went on. "And now for our reserve team. Our reserve Chasers: Angelina Johnson, currently playing for the Holyhead Harpies," there were sighs of relief all around the living room, "Edric Vosper, currently playing for Moutohora Macaws, and Fabius Wu, currently playing for Puddlemere United. Our reserve Beaters: Frank Howardson, currently playing for the Charente Carolhes, and Simon Bryne, currently playing for the Pride of Portree. Our reserve Keeper: Denison Frisby, currently playing for the Appleby Arrows. And our reserve Seekers: Julius Aslan, currently playing for the Tutshill Tornadoes, and Angela William-Jones, currently playing for the Falmouth Falcons."

"Three players for the Falcons?" asked Ron, and Harry too wondered at it.

But Ginny said, "Actually, I'm surprised Angela wasn't the main Seeker. Although Aslan wouldn't have been that much a surprise either. And of course, that Angela's had so little chance to play these past two years is a problem."

"I think I heard something about her," said Ron. "She was the Muggle-born who turned down the big Japanese contract, wasn't she?"

"Yeah," said Ginny. "They say she stayed in Britain for nearly four months after the Ministry fell, before fleeing to Canada. Then she started coming back to rescue other Muggle-borns, and saved over a hundred people from imprisonment in Azkaban."

On the radio, a prim female voice that Harry thought was probably Laurel Brownstown had taken over, announcing that further questions would be taken at a press conference beginning in half an hour. "That's it, then," said Hermione, standing up. "We should get back to work."

They all got up then, and most of them dispersed out of the room. But Harry, Ron, and George had already been working in the family room, trying to break various spells on the Weasley's suitcases that might set off the airport scanners, and so they remained, with the radio still on. Crius and his female co-announcer, whom he helpfully identified as Panette, were discussing their initial impressions of the team manager's choices. "Obviously the Beaters were no surprise. Withey and Choudry were England's best players here at home four years ago, and Withey arguably had her best season yet last year with the Meteorites. The real surprise was in the Chasers. There were a few people I know predicting Flint, and even a few predicting Bell, but did anyone predict them both?"

"Well, I admit, I didn't predict either," said Panette. "But I would say it makes sense to have them both if you're going to have either. After all, the best thing the Falcons were able to show this year was the chemistry between this husband and wife pair, and I suspect that was a large part of what got them both named."

"Still can't believe they got married," commented Ron.

"So that actually happened?" asked Harry. He'd heard about the engagement, of course, when Katie had returned from St. Mungo's, which was when he also learned of the secret relationship that had been going on with him even when they'd been foes on Hogwarts Quidditch pitch, which was absolutely crazy. She'd even hinted she'd invite the entire old team to the wedding, but of course by then he, Ron, and Hermione had been off hunting Horcruxes and hadn't been able to attend. And when they hadn't gotten invitations, Harry had hoped it might have been called off. Marcus had proposed, after all, when Katie had been lying catatonic in a hospital bed, which was the exact kind of thing that Mrs. Weasley had lamented about happening during wartime, and maybe they'd later thought better of it.

"Yeah," said George. "Although the big wedding had to be called off when the Ministry fell and they started going after Muggle-borns, since that included her mother and uncle. I think they just held a quick ceremony, and then the uncle and both her parents were smuggled to North America. Although you do realize she brought him with her when she came back to Hogwarts for the battle?"

"No," said Harry, surprised. He hadn't kept track of everyone who had showed up for that.

"Yeah, I saw him," said Ron. "It was during the break, when you were off in the forest," he explained to Harry. "He had a broom with him, and was transporting off some people who were hurt, so he wasn't there when you came back."

And he hadn't known at all, Harry thought. He'd been so focused on his own task.

"But what really alarms me," Crius was saying on the radio, "is that they named Cemout to the team, while poor Angela William-Jones is only an alternate. I know you say that was more because of how hot Blythe Parkin's hands have been lately, but when you snub the Muggle-born like that, it makes a statement. I'm started to think she should've declared for Wales instead."

"Not necessarily," said Panette. "William-Jones is still a largely untested quantity. Yes, it is unfortunate and unfair to her that she hasn't had the opportunity to be tested, but does England really want to take that risk, just for the sake of fairness?"

"Still," said Crius. "After all she did this year, how can we punish her for choosing nobility over Quidditch? And meanwhile, Cemout is on the team, which is no doubt because she was able to play so much this year, even more so because she was touted as the pure-blooded prodigy."

"Well," said Panette. "She's stuck with the Cannons now, so I'm not going to begrudge her this." Next to him, Harry heard Ron mutter angrily.

**The Next Day**

The entire family went to the airport with them to see them off, although Arthur had to run off almost as soon as they got there, when a small man obviously a wizard trying to dress up as a Muggle but in a woman's flouncy skirt and a raincoat (and it was not raining), came running up to them and whispered into his ear. He apologized, gave the three of them quick hugs, and hurried off with him. Harry wished he knew what was so urgent, especially since he had the feeling it might have something to do with the upcoming trials.

"Pity," Ron commented as they looking around the entrance, searching for the check-in counter. "He would have loved seeing all this."

"He's flown by plane before," said Mrs. Weasley. "It was a number of years ago, during the first war. But even under those circumstances he wouldn't stop talking about it for two days after he came home. Remember our offer to come join any of you at any time stands."

The rest of them waited by the wall as the three of them got in line to check in. It was a lengthy wait, but Hermione had thoughtfully brought a book. It was one called _The Marvelous Life of Albus Dumbledore_, which Harry supposed could've gotten her in trouble if anyone wanted her to be in it, but it wasn't like the name meant anything to Muggles, and she'd taken the book jacket off, underneath which the cover was normal and harmless. When she pulled it out, Ron asked, "Where'd you get that from?"

"Post order," said Hermione, a little annoyed, as if he should've guessed that already. "Arrived this morning. It was published in the States back in March, by this famous Muggle-born biographer, John Shelly. He describes it as a direct response to Skeeter's biography, and he really is writing like he's trying to restore the man's reputation. You two should read it when I'm done."

"All right," said Harry, although he found himself thinking that even if it obviously wasn't going to be half as terrible as Skeeter's, it couldn't really be that truthful either. Especially not when he was probably making a point of ignoring all the Aunt Muriels of the world, and Harry doubted he had could've consulted with any reliable truthful source about the darker side of Dumbledore's life, not when he'd been effectively in exile in the United States.

Hermione was quick enough to realize that too, of course. They'd been in line about twenty minutes when she commented, "He does address Bathilda Bagshot's comments, but he's basically discrediting her here. That's not nice. I'm certainly willing to believe Skeeter warped Bagshot's words, but she's too respectable a historian for me to believe she herself was lying even if I didn't know better."

"That's not good," Harry mused. "It'll be harder for people to believe him if he goes doing things like that. Does he really think people can't accept the truth? That Dumbledore was wrong about some things in his life, but he was still basically who he seemed to be, was still dedicated to the right side?"

"Maybe he does," said Ron. "And think about it, Harry. Remember that he made you walk to that woods thinking you were going to sacrifice yourself, and how could he have really been sure you wouldn't actually be killed?" He sounded like he was still at least somewhat upset over that whole thing.

"I was willing to do it," said Harry.

"Yes," said Hermione, "but think about people who don't know anything about you besides that you're the Boy Who Lived, and that you've been doing all this when you still aren't even eighteen yet. They might hear about something like that, and think you were, well, kind of taken advantage of."

"I was not," Harry growled. He remembered Snape's anger from the memory, though of course he'd believed Harry had to die. But even when Harry himself had believed that, he still hadn't been angry, at least not at Dumbledore. It had been horrible, yes, and wrong, but Harry Potter had known that the world was wrong and unfair from a very early age. When he knew what the world would be like if Voldemort wasn't defeated…well, he couldn't blame Dumbledore for doing what it took to bring him down, even if it meant putting Harry through all he had. He supposed it made the phrase "the greater good" spring out of his past and haunt his present again. But his main thought about that was how much it must have pained the old wizard, the past he maybe had never entirely escaped even before Tom Riddle had proved such a menace.

"Is there a way to tell people that?" Hermione was musing. "Or just to tell people the truth about Dumbledore, a truth that maybe they would be willing to believe? Or at least as much of it as we can retrieve, with him dead and so many other people dead too. Maybe someone needs to write another book about Dumbledore, but who?"

Harry thought about all that Dumbledore had told him, all the things where he might now be the only living person who knew them. At least if the person he had met with in his head had in fact been the entity that had been Albus Dumbledore, lingering at some supernatural King's Cross before he'd "gone on," as Nearly-Headless Nick had put it to Harry two years ago, but Harry was somehow absolutely convinced he was. Whoever wrote the book would have to be someone he could convince about that, though.

He was not the person to write it, he knew that. He could write an okay essay if he spent enough time working at it, but the idea of organizing so many facts and details, and figuring out what to put and what to leave out, just did not feel like something he was capable of. But as he watched Hermione continued to read Shelly's biography, shaking her head slightly as she turned a page, he found himself thinking she might be able to do it. She knew her way around these kinds of books, and his trust in her doing it right was absolute.

He thought about it through the rest of the check-in process, and by the time they reached the gate, his mind was made up. "Hermione," he said as they sat down to wait, "how would you feel about writing a biography of Dumbledore?"

"What?" Both she and Ron looked at him in shock.

"Someone should do it, and how can we know who to ask, who we could trust? It's got to be someone I can repeat what Dumbledore talked to me about, and also all the things I saw in the Pensieve, and I don't want to go telling his secrets to just anyone. And you could write it, could you?"

"Well…" said Hermione hesitantly, "reading and writing books aren't necessarily the same thing."

"You could try," said Ron, catching onto the idea. "See if you could do it."

"Of all the people I trust, Hermione," said Harry, "you'd absolutely do the best job."

"I could try, I suppose," she said, after pause. "I'd have to do a lot of research, though. Talk to a lot of people too, and I don't know if they'd all be willing to talk to me. If we could just get Aberforth to agree to a longer interview…" She was starting to talk faster, really applying her brilliant mind to it, and Harry smiled, because he knew this was in good hands.

As she continued to ponder, lapsing into mostly silence with the occasional mutter to herself, Ron rose, and walked to the windows, slowly, taking in the view of the inside as well as the outside, the smart yellow signs and clustered seats and the screens. He'd done that during the walk to the gate too, not with his father's insatiable curiousity, but with some interest nonetheless. Harry himself had done the same; it wasn't as if the Dursleys had ever taken him into an airport either. He followed Ron, and together the two of them stared out at the field of concrete and its massive winged inhabitants.

"She's really anxious," said Ron. "She isn't admitting very much of it, but she did a little this morning when we woke up."

"Think it's good for her to have the distraction, then?"

"Hope so, or it's going to be a long flight."

Harry understood. It was going to be difficult as it was, especially when Hermione had already warned them they were going to spend close to an entire day sitting on the plane. They would try to sleep for as much of that as possible. In theory after months of sleeping in the tent that shouldn't be too hard to do, but he just wasn't sure how he'd react to the environment of the plane; he never was anymore. And even after they'd destroyed the necklace, they'd still dreaded any bad moods of any of the three of them, because it was inevitably infectious.

**Ten Hours Later**

When Harry woke up from his second attempt to sleep, he was left with no real idea of where in the sky they were, or what time it was. At least he'd had no nightmares. Since he'd ended up by the window, he pushed up the shade, but there were too many clouds to tell if they were even over land or sea. He craned his neck to see the in-flight movie, but he'd already watched part of it, and the lead actress in it had a voice that was way too high pitched for him to enjoy, plus there were way too many explosions.

Next to him Ron was asleep, and looked like he was sleeping pretty deeply. But on his other side, he could see Hermione was awake. Not only that, but she had the Dumbledore biography open in her lap without looking at it. That meant she wasn't even trying to sleep, or succeeding at what she was trying to do instead.

He was loath to wake Ron, though, so while their eyes met, and she nodded at him, thankfully not saying anything that would wake him either, for several minutes Harry wasn't sure how else to communicate with her. Then she reached down below her seat, pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil, and started to write.

It proved trickier to get the piece of paper to him than he might have thought, they both really had to stretch before he could grab it and the pencil both. _I don't think we're the only wizards and witch on this plane,_ he read. _There's a family sitting a few rows back where the parents are in Scottish dancing costumes, and they looked at me as if they recognized me._

If Harry walked past them, of course, and they were wizards, they would definitely recognize him. But getting to the aisle would probably again wake Ron. So he just wrote, _how many?_ and got the paper and pencil back to her. Idly he noted it was getting to the point in his life where a pencil no longer felt familiar in his hand, and he was holding it more like he would hold his quill. He watched Hermione write her response, and saw that she did similar. He wondered how the wizarding family, if that was what they were, would cope when they had to fill out the cards Hermione had told him and Ron the passengers would all have to fill out before landing, or what they would even write.

If they were going to the Quidditch World Cup, had they even perhaps been given instructions on what to write? It would be a bit early for that, but some witches and wizards probably were directed to go early, so less of them would be on Muggle transports at once.

_Six,_ Hermione had written. _Parents, four boys, and two girls. Two of the boys are teenagers, I think one of the girls is, the other two boys are younger, and the second girl looks only about three or four. The children are all in normal Muggle clothes._

_Normal Muggle clothes,_ she had written. Distantly Harry found himself thinking about the significance of that, that they were no longer just normal clothes to her. After seven years of living in the wizarding world, and being witness to both the best and worst parts of it, they were both of them now acting and thinking like they had lived there their entire lives. He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that, especially when it made him wonder how it would affect her upcoming reunion with her parents.

Either they had been too loud, or he had woken up on his own, but at that moment Ron stirred. He blinked his eyes open, looked back and forth between the two of them, and asked, "How much longer?"

"Lots," said Harry. "Sorry."

"Damn," he sighed. "Was hoping that you were both awake meant…"

"No," said Hermione. "Just our typical insomnia."

"I don't think Harry's actually suffering from insomnia, exactly…" Ron started.

"Are you two?" asked Harry. They had talked about sleeping better with each other, so obviously they were having some trouble, but they hadn't said how much, exactly.

Hermione sighed, and said, very quietly, "When I've been in the girl's dorm at Hogwarts, I haven't slept for more than an hour or so at a time. I keep waking up and…" she drifted off. Harry understood; this wasn't easy to talk about. "As I said already, Ron and I have both been sleeping better when we've been in the same bed, especially when…" Harry was grateful when she then drifted off again, especially considering how pink she and Ron promptly turned. "And of course, we all three did better when we all shared the bed. Do you want to do that in Australia, Harry? At least until Ginny joins us? I mean, I don't know how you two…"

"I don't know if she'd mind or not," said Harry honestly. "But I really don't want to do anything there's any chance of her minding."

"Well," laughed Ron, "I think that one's pretty much impossible, but okay, fair point."

Shortly afterwards Harry and Ron ended up heading for the toilets together. Ron was closer to the side where Hermione had said the possible wizarding family was seated, in the hopes that might reduce the chance of their noticing Harry's scar. But all hope of that flew out the plane's windows when the little girl saw Ron, and cried, "Wheezy!"

"It is?" asked the other girl. The family was as Hermione had described them, with the parents' outfits looking almost cartoonish. Their eyes fell on Harry very quickly, and then the game was truly up. The teenagers saw him too, and the girl said, "Yes, you are. Harry Potter and Ron Weasley."

"You know my name too?" asked Ron, and he sounded happy. Well, if this made Ron happy, Harry could live with being recognized.

"Are you going to the Quidditch World Cup too?" asked the little girl eagerly.

"Shush, Rose," whispered her father urgently. "Remember we told you we're not allowed to talk about that around the Muggles!"

But Ron leaned down and whispered, "Yes, we are; we're going to watch all three of England's games. But don't tell anyone. It's all a secret."

"You're only going to watch England?" asked the younger looking boy, barely keeping his voice down. "What about Scotland? You ought to watch Scotland. They've got a good chance of getting out of their group!"

"Well," sighed Ron, "we would, but we didn't get tickets. They gave us free tickets to England's matches, you see, which means those are the matches we have to go to."

"Maybe they'll decide to give you free tickets to Scotland's matches once they're in the round of sixteen and England isn't," smirked the little girl.

"We hope so," said Harry. "Maybe we'll see you there?"

"Nay," laughed the father. "We don't have the money for that, and noone's going to give us free tickets to any Quidditch." His voice was warm when he said that, though, and then he said, "Still," and held his hand out. Harry gestured at Ron to shake it first, and he was especially glad he'd done so when the man said, "You certainly deserve it. I read all about you and the Muggle-born witch in the Prophet, and I know you're both heroes. Enjoy your holiday."

The lavatory was occupied, giving them a couple of minutes to talk quietly while they waited, and Ron said, "It still feels weird, you know. Good, but weird."

"You'll get used to it," smiled Harry. "Well, there are some parts you don't really get used to, but…"

"That's good to know," said Ron, but then he sighed, and didn't seem at all happy.

"Not what you thought it would be, is it?" he asked, although he did so much more gently than he once would have.

"Oh," said Ron, "this doesn't really feel like…I mean, I remember in our third and fourth years, when Sirius went at my bed with a knife and I went down in the lake, and this felt kind of like that. And I suppose, now, I should've been more scared after the first-I mean, we didn't know Sirius was just after…but I wasn't. I didn't think about it that way, you know?"

"Yeah," agreed Harry. "We didn't then, did we?"

Then the lavatory was unoccupied and the conversation ended, but they both were still feeling its impact even as they silently returned to their seats, barely even noticing when they again walked past the wizarding family, even though Harry found himself thinking they ought to ask for their names.

Hermione noticed. "Are you two all right?" she asked. "Nobody said anything bad to you, did they?"

Ron just laughed a little, and said, "It's a long flight. Too much time to think. I wish I felt more tired."

Harry did nap again before it was over, although he spent most of the rest of the flight either trying to sleep or just staring out the window. Down below he thought he probably saw a lot of Asia, but didn't even know that much about the main continent. He knew where China and India were, and he might be able to figure out where Tibet was, but that was all. They didn't teach geography at Hogwarts, or at least not Muggle geography. He wondered if maybe the Department of International Magical Cooperation had to run classes for new employees or something.


	6. The Prodigal Witch

It took them about a week after they arrived in Australia to track Hermione's parents to Brisbane, where just after lunch they found themselves walking to the front door of a comfortable house in a northern suburb called Wavell Heights. Hermione was leading the way, but her pace was the slowest Harry had ever known it to be. She had her wand out, which he knew they were not supposed to do in a Muggle environment like this, and had it poised as they rang the doorbell.

Harry could only imagine how Hermione felt when the heard a voice he recognized as her mother's, though her accent now had a very faint Australian tinge, saying "I'll get it, Wendell, it's probably just…" Then the door was open, and there she was. It had been a very long time since Harry had last seen her, during which time she had cut her hair, changed her glasses, and aged a bit, though the weird thing was the strange look in her eyes, like there wasn't as much life lived in them as there had once been. "And who are you three?" she asked.

Instead of responding, Hermione just said, not shouting it but with the volume of her voice all the way up, _"FINITE INCANTATEM."_

The air all around them whooshed violently, a whirlwind that knocked all three of Harry, Ron, and Mrs. Granger to the ground before flying into the house, and they heard another thump, persumably Mr. Granger getting knocked down too. The two boys pulled themselves to their feet as it dissipated to find Hermione hurrying over to help her mother up. "Do you remember who you are now, mum?" she asked. "Do you remember me?"

Then the woman lifted her head, and even though the lines and contours of her face hadn't changed any, it still seemed to Harry to be much more the face he remembered. Except that it bore a mix of shock, anger, and fear, and her first words to her daughter then were, "What did you do to us, Hermione?"

"I…" Hermione was taken aback. "I told you, remember? That should be the last thing you remember now, right before I cast the spell. I had to do this for your own safety. Lord Voldemort would have killed you."

"You had to…" Her mother was shaking her head. "You destroyed who we were. You made us…you made us forget _you_. How could you, Hermione?"

"Hermione?" Mr. Granger had stumbled in. He looked dazed and shocked too, and frightened, but not as angry. "Are you…what's…you said someone would kill us?"

"Yes," said Hermione, "but he's dead now, so now you can come back home. It's over. I'm sorry I had to erase your memories-"

"Had to?!" Her mother demanded. "Had to? You did not have to do any such thing, Hermione. You did not have to do any of this. You should not have made us flee."

"But they would've killed you!" she protested, tears in her eyes. "I don't care what you think, mum; that's the plain fact of it. You were my parents, and I was the Muggle-born best friend of Lord Voldemort's greatest enemy, and there's no way I could have kept you safe unless you left the country, and even then, I didn't know…"

Why hadn't the Order moved them, though, Harry wondered. After all, they'd moved the Dursleys. But under the circumstances, he wasn't about the ask that question out loud.

Especially when Mrs. Granger, now on her feet, was backing away, shaking her head. "No, Hermione," she said. "You still didn't have to do this to us. And you never should have. I…I never thought I would have to say this to my own daughter…"

"Jean, stop!" Mr. Granger cut her off, and he now sounded not anything else so much as panicked. "Don't say something to her you'll regret tomorrow."

"How can you…" She whirled on him. "Daniel, do you realize what she did to us?"

"I do," he said gravely. "And believe me, Hermione, I am angry at you. But…" He shook his head. "What I think you might have been about to say to her, I think maybe you should wait until tomorrow morning, and then see then if you still want to say it. Perhaps, Hermione, you should come and see us again, then?"

"My mind won't be changed," Mrs. Granger hissed.

"If you are certain of that," said her husband, "then there's no harm in waiting until tomorrow to make you mind known. You should come back at about ten tomorrow, Hermione."

"I will, then," said Hermione, and they both looked expectantly at her, before she said, "And I am sorry, you know, that I caused you this pain." Which wasn't exactly her saying she was sorry she'd done it, Harry thought. The problem was, he didn't think she was ready to go that far. She genuinely believed, he was sure, that what she had done had saved their lives, and maybe she was right there, but that almost didn't matter. Almost.

He wasn't sure it would matter much to Mrs. Granger. She wasn't even looking at her daughter anymore, walking slowly away and further into the house.

"Until then?" Mr. Granger offered, shrugging helplessly. But he didn't moved to even touch his daughter, which Harry was pretty sure had to hurt, probably for both of them. He just waved, and Hermione reluctantly stepped back and closed the door.

Softly as Harry had ever heard him speak, Ron said, "Are you going to be okay, Hermione?"

Her response was to simply turn and walk off. They followed her without a word.

**That Evening**

When they found a nearby hotel, they got two rooms, but all three of them went to one of them. Harry wasn't even entirely sure he'd go to the other when it was time to sleep; he wasn't sure at this point what Hermione would want, if she would prefer to keep them both with her, or let Harry leave so she and Ron could have sex.

But they were all three of them hungry, and none of them in any mood to go out looking for food. Luckily Hermione had, at some point in time, gotten her hands on a menu for some local Chinese place that did deliveries. Neither he nor Ron knew much about Chinese food. The Dursleys had not cared for it, so both their experience with it was limited to a couple of times the previous year when it had happened the be the food they'd been able to get their hands on. So they let Hermione order things, sitting at the edge of the bed while she stood by the desk.

When she hung up, Ron asked, "What are we going to do if your mum's attitude doesn't change by tomorrow?"

There was too long a pause before she admitted, "I don't know," and her voice cracked. It was only then Harry noticed how shiny her eyes were already, and how she didn't look steady. Was it right to tell her it was okay if she needed to cry?

"She's ungrateful," said Ron. "You saved their lives. Don't forget that. They would've been like...like *Fred* if you hadn't."

He'd meant it, and he'd meant it well. But it probably hadn't been the right thing to say, because at his words Hermione lost the battle not to cry, collapsing against the desk. Both of them got off the bed and knelt by her. Ron reached an arm around her, even when she barely looked at him in response, and had no reaction when he said, "I'm sorry, Hermione, I'm so sorry."

Eventually she sank into his embrace, and down to the floor, Ron following, and Harry went and sat down on it too. For a few minutes after that she just continued to cry, but then, through her tears, she said, "I was so scared, you know. When I got home. Part of why I chose to do what I did was because I knew I could do it within a couple of days. At that point I figured I was lucky as it was. I didn't know when they were going to decide my parents would be a good target. And all the way home from London, they were asking how things were going, and you know, technically, I'd told them about everything, but they never comprehended how big the threat was, not really. I think in a way, they saw it as a threat to me and to the world was I was going off to every year, but not to them."

"They were…" Ron started, then stopped himself. Harry admired his restraint; he, too, badly wanted to comment on how idiotic that had been of them.

"When we walked into the house," she continued, "I had my hand on my wand. I was ready for a whole squad of Death Eaters to immediately burst out of the shadows and kill us all. I didn't sleep that first night at home, just lay awake, still holding my wand. If I'd had any doubt about what I had to do…I'd originally planned to wait a week. Just allow myself one last week with my parents…" She broke down again, and they both moved to comfort her, Harry grabbing a box of tissues from the desk. "But by the time I'd been home for a day, I knew I didn't dare. It took me three days to fully plan things out and be ready to do the spell. Occasionally I couldn't bear it and took an hour or so off, and spent it with them, of course, and afterwards I'd always think, 'What if I needed that hour to get them away from here in time?'"

"But didn't they need more time to move anyway?" pointed out Harry. "I mean, you can't just pick up and move to Australia in a day or so."

"Oh, that was the worst part," she said with a bitter laugh. "I stayed and watched, you know, sealed off a part of the attic and hoarded enough food to last for a couple of weeks. I did what I could to prepare everything and give them as little to do as possible-I knocked them out for a few hours so I could go around the house, get rid of or hide anything that indicated they'd had a daughter, go through everything they had to change the names, that sort of thing. Put them to bed, so they woke up the next day Wendell and Monica Wilkins.

It took them eleven days." She spoke the last two words with deep pain. That had clearly been the longest eleven days of her life. "I even followed them to Heathrow, at least until they went through security and headed for their gate. In the main terminal I sat near the monitor and waited until their plane had departed. Although even then I spent hours not knowing for sure they'd been on it, until there wasn't any report of anyone being found dead, and then I told myself the Death Eaters wouldn't have bothered removing the bodies of Muggles they'd killed in a Muggle location; if they'd been killed in the airport, I'd have known by then."

"Will you tell them all that tomorrow?" Ron asked. "They ought to know about it."

Hermione shook her head. "I don't think they'd listen."

"Some parents, then! Their daughter goes through all that to save their lives, and that's how they repay her?" It seemed Ron just wouldn't let this go. "You know what? If you don't tell them tomorrow, Harry and I should."

"Ron, please!" she protested. "If I know anything about my mother, that would just make things worse!"

"Oh how much worse can they get? Unless she does come to her senses, anyway."

"At least my father's talking to me."

"He's not being very nice, is he? You know, if my mum were here, she wouldn't have stood for how either of your parents behaved today…"

"But she's not," and Hermione was getting louder now, even as a few more tears still escaped her. Harry started glancing at the door, trying to will the Chinese food to come quicker. He couldn't leave when Hermione was like this, but he dreaded having to sit there and hear them argue.

But then Ron said, "Maybe she should come here. You should have someone who treats you as a mother ought to right now, and she will."

The suggestion clearly took Hermione by surprise as well. She had been opening her mouth to say something else, but now she closed it and just stared for a moment. But then she shook her head again, "She's got enough to deal with right now."

"None of that's more important than seeing _all_ her children are all right, and being there for the one who needs her." He took her hand as he said this, and the statement he was making was unmistakable.

Harry thought he was right, too. Especially now that he and Hermione were dating, but even if they hadn't been.

"Seriously," said Ron, "what time is it in Britain right now? I mean, I don't know if we still have that fellytone I used to try to call Harry that one time, but if I can remember the number, you can try to dial it after we eat dinner. And we should send her an owl tomorrow anyway, once we find a place here we can get one."

"There's a public owlery in the city," said Hermione. Of course she'd looked already. "I'll write a letter tonight and we can deliver it tomorrow morning, before we go back. It'll take some time to get to her, though. We might get home first, although I don't think we'll leave that quickly."

When there was a knock on the door, Harry answered. He'd intended to ask Hermione questions about what she'd gotten them, but now it felt like too much trouble. There was something with vegetables and brown rice, and something that looked like dumplings, and something with very thick yellow noodles. Also plain white rice. Ron made a funny face when he first tasted the noodles which made Hermione roll her eyes, but at least they'd included normal utensils as well as the chopsticks. Ultimately dinner passed quietly enough, the three of them passing the white boxes around to each other until they were all full and the boxes were all empty.

At least they were finally getting used to eating their fill again. In Shell Cottage, eating three full meals a day had been enough to make Harry feel overfed and uncomfortable. He'd occasionally needed to lie down afterwards. But now he just felt restless, enough so that he asked, "I'll go to my own room now?"

"You should," said Hermione. "Going to be a busy day tomorrow."

Still, before going, he found his hands reaching out, just wanting to have contact with his two friends before he left them for the night. Ron brushed it with his own, and then Hermione leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, and said, "Good night, Harry."

Walking to the end of the hotel corridor and staring out the window at the city of Brisbane didn't get rid of the restlessness. Nor did taking the lift down to the lobby and sitting down and watching the people who came in and out, though it did distract him from it for moments at a time. Nor did going out and taking a walk around the block. If anything, that just made him feel more nervous. He kept having to remind himself that no one was about to attack him or do anything else unpleasant.

He gave up, went back upstairs, changed into his sleeping clothes, and crawled under the blankets of his hotel bed with the lamp next to it still on; he didn't want to be in the dark right now. He wished Ginny were there. They wouldn't even have to do anything she didn't want to do yet; he just wanted to hold her in his arms again. Not that he wouldn't mind doing more either. He even briefly considering jerking off while thinking about that, but something in him just felt like that wouldn't feel right, at least not right now. Or maybe he was just too tired.

Instead he got out of bed, went to his suitcases, and started fishing through them for the Marauder's Map. It was kind of silly to have it, especially since the other Weasleys weren't even going to go back to Hogwarts this year, since there wasn't much point to it at the moment. But he thought it would be comforting just to see the outline of the castle, seeing activity being carried out within it.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," and there it was again. Harry was especially impressed with how the map had been able to track what had happened to the castle; those areas which had been sufficiently pulverized saw that reflected in the current map. It was late morning in Britain, and the Great Hall was mostly deserted, but Harry was surprised to see how many people were in the Entrance Hall, including Professor Sprout, Dean, Demelza, several Hufflepuffs whom Ginny had mentioned as being in her year, and some other names he didn't recognize.

It comforted him to see even those people, to know they were all alive and doing well. He looked further on the map, at the individual classes, at least those that were still being held. Professor McGonagall was still holding hers, although he didn't recognize any of the names in her classroom with her; younger students, probably. Down in the dungeons, Professor Slughorn was teaching a seventh-year group. Harry didn't like all the names he saw there, but it was good to see Ernie's. Firenze has returned to Hogwarts as well. Harry could see walls ghosted where they had been suspended, and Parvati among those grouped near him. Luna, on the other hand, was up with the other sixth-year Divination students with Professor Trelawney. Neville and Seamus had a free period, and were out on the grounds together.

He ended up studying the map, happily locating almost everyone he knew still at the school, until classes started to wrap up in anticipation of lunch, and the names all started to converge on the Great Hall. The map was surprisingly good at showing multiple names even when they were all crowded in one location, but it had its limits. But even then Harry didn't bother turning off the map, just lay down in bed with it, and stared at all the familiar names that swam before his eyes, until finally he succumbed to sleep.

**The Next Morning**

When they left the hotel, Hermione was armed with her bag. The public owlery was their first stop; they got the letter sent off as soon as possible. As they watched her tie to the foot of one of the owls, Ron whispered to Harry, "She should have written more, especially since the fellytone didn't work. I think mum and dad must have lost ours during everything. But it doesn't matter. Mum will come here as soon as she can, anyway. Might be longer because of…everything, but still as soon as she can."

Just before they walked up to her parents' door, Hermione stopped, reached into her bag, and pulled out a large binder. Harry opened his mouth to offer to knock if she wanted, but clutching it to her chest she strode up to the door and knocked even as Harry and Ron hastily caught up with her.

Her father answered the door alone, and she held the binder out to him. "Even if you don't want to talk to me, you'll still need these," she said. "In them is everything you need to resume your old identities and get back to Britain. I'll even pay you back for the plane tickets. I don't have the money right now, but I think it's likely I can get it pretty soon." Idly Harry wondered if maybe someone in the Order might be willing to pay for it. Given they'd done nothing else for the Grangers, there was an argument they ought to.

Mr. Granger took through the papers, and flipped through them. "Thank you," he said, "and we'll take these and keep them. But the two of us talked about it last night, and we've actually decided we'd like to stay here in Australia, at least for now. We've gotten used to the place, we've made a number of friends, and also managed to acquire a number of customers, and we do like it here."

Hermione's face fell, and he said, "That's not to say we don't want you to be in our lives anymore," he said. "At least, I don't feel that way, and I honestly don't think your mother wants you gone either, though she might not give that impression right now. You could come see us."

But she'd be with them a lot less, and they clearly had no problem with that. But Hermione didn't say that, just lowered her head and said, "If that's what you want to do."

His face softened, and he said, "Come in, Hermione. We still need to talk."

He led them into a small but comfortable-looking living room, where they sat in armchairs which didn't look pretty, but were soft. Mrs. Granger was already seated in one of them. She didn't look at any of them as Mr. Granger said, "I don't know how much you should tell us about your adventures, honestly, Hermione, but would you like to know what we've done this past year? I'm not sure how much there really is to tell…"

"I would like to know how you ended up here in Brisbane." said Hermione. "Also, you seem to be running a successful business here and to all together be doing well?"

"It was actually because of one of the friends we have now that we ended up here," explained Mr. Granger. "Initially we settled in Sydney…" And he told the story of their month in Sydney, where they had struggled a bit to get used to Australia, and how helpful their new oral hygienist Craig was, and how when he had wanted to move to Brisbane to be closer to his ailing parents they'd seen no reason not to move the whole business there themselves. "I would like you to meet Craig," he said. "If the three of you even think you could do with a dental checkup…"

"We probably could," said Harry thoughtfully. "If you have time for it, of course."

"Well, not today; we're actually booked up for today. We have one spot open tomorrow, and two for next week. Do you three plan to be here next week?"

The three of them looked at each other. "We don't know," said Harry. "There are things we need to be back in Britain for later in the month, but we also plan to be back here in June for our own reasons. We don't know what days yet, though I suppose we'll have to arrive by June 13."

"Jean?" Mr. Granger looked at his wife. "I think we have room for two patients on the 12th?"

Mrs. Granger thought for a moment, and then nodded. "Last two slots of the day."

Ron and Hermione looked at each other in a clear moment of unspoken communication. Then Ron said, "You should look at Harry first. The two of us will wait until June." Both her parents looked so relieved at this Harry didn't protest.

There was a moment of silence where they all tried to think of what to say next. Then Ron said, "We're dating, you know. The two of us."

"I…thought that already," said Mrs. Granger, and the grief in her voice was pretty telling; she'd thought that would happen long before her memories had been changed. "Does it…does it make you happy, Hermione?"

"Yes, it does, mother," said Hermione. When her father looked a little skeptical, she said, "Well, it's not like we don't still argue, but we've been doing that and managed to stay in each other's lives for seven years now, so…" Ron looked very happy to hear her words. Harry supposed they were reassuring to him too.

"I am glad to hear he makes you happy," said Mr. Granger, measuring out his words. "But I will want to have a long talk with you, Mr. Weasley. In June; I'm not ready for that sort of thing today."

"Yes, sir," said Ron, trying not to sound too nervous.

Uncomfortable silence again, and then Mrs. Granger said, "You three should go out this afternoon. See a little of the city. Have you been to see _Titanic_ yet? It doesn't exactly sound like you have."

"Seen what?" asked a confused Hermione.

That got Mr. Granger to smile, though Mrs. Granger didn't react to the question. "It's a movie that came out last Christmas that everyone in the world's seen. Obviously you three haven't been seeing any movies at all or even hearing about them. I think you should go see it too. There's a cinema not far from here where it's still showing. I can give you directions."

He got up and went to get a map. When he was out of the room, Mrs. Granger looked down. Harry saw her lips move, but they did not part. Ron quietly reached out and took Hermione's hand; she squeezed it tight.

Harry found himself concentrating on listening to Mr. Granger's footsteps as he went further into the house. The three of them had gotten pretty skilled at listening to footsteps during the past year; more than one of their activities had required it. Hearing the feet on wood was comforting; it brought back memories of the Burrow, rather than of the tent at night. Still, when Mrs. Granger shifted on her seat, it did take a moment for Harry to remind himself there were all safe here and now.

When Mr. Granger came back in, after, in Harry's opinion, taking way too much time and leaving them to have sat together like this way too long, he did so with a small notepad. "Here," he said. "I not only wrote down the address and directions to the cinema, but also names and addresses for some good restaurants, if you want to eat out." Was that a message to them that they should go out for lunch too, and so leave before then? Harry wasn't sure.

But it wasn't lunchtime yet, and he sat back down, and said, "I do want to know something about what you have been doing this past year, Hermione."

She might have said, the previous night, that she told her parents everything, whether they understood it or not, but even so, it felt strangely shocking to hear her immediately start talking about Voldemort. They of course had no reaction to hearing her say his name, although Harry had a sudden momentary fear it was going to cause Death Eaters to burst in. At one point her father asked, "You were out in the wilderness, like that? For months?" and from the look on her mother's face, Harry was sure she had the impulse to fret over her daughter, the way Mrs. Weasley would've. When she talked about Ron leaving, she said simply of the motivation that he'd had an argument with the two of them, for which Harry was thankful, and he was sure Ron was too. It didn't stop Mr. Granger from giving his daughter's boyfriend a very perturbed look, though.

She also downplayed what had happened to her at Malfoy Manor, but when her voice faltered a little bit, Harry could tell that they noticed. They probably did know enough to know they'd have wanted to hurt her more because of her parentage. Still they didn't interrupt then. It was only when she got to the part about breaking into Gringotts that her mother suddenly exclaimed, "You robbed a bank?!"

Hermione didn't seem to know how to respond. Her father saved her by saying, "I think, under the circumstances…"

They didn't have any visible reaction to hearing about the dragon. Harry wondered if maybe some things of the wizarding world were so alien to their own that they didn't really process them. They didn't have any reactions to the final battle when she was telling it, not even to the remembered pain in her voice when she talked about them thinking Harry actually had been killed. But when she at least concluded her account with, "So now we're probably all going to go back to school next year, and the surviving Death Eaters and collaborators are going to go on trial, and we're going to be busy testifying, and I'm not sure about everything we're going to be doing, but that's the general plan, and also, as I said, we're coming back here in June," both her parents looked very somber and sympathetic.

"I think," Mr. Granger finally said, "that we're in the position of parents whose child has come back from fighting a war."

Yes, thought Harry, that was exactly the position they were in. That was what they'd been doing, and he'd long known that. But it felt different to hear someone actually _say_ it.

"That doesn't excuse what she did," said Mrs. Granger, but her voice was devoid of anger.

"You know what I said about that last night, Jean."

"Monica," she said. "That's been my name for the past year, and if we're to stay here, what explanation could we give everyone we know for changing our names? After all," she laughed darkly, "we're not allowed to tell the truth, are we? So if we're staying here, we have to stay Wendell and Monica."

"Right. Monica. So, I think it's time you three should be getting off to lunch. It will take you some time to get to any of the restaurants I've listed."

They took the cue, standing up along with him. Hermione's mother didn't accompany them to the door.

Her father did, however, and when they reached it, he said, "I want to hug my daughter." They both looked awkwardly at Harry and Ron; they clearly wouldn't be comfortable having this moment in front of them. The two of them looked at each other, and without speaking stepped out and let the front door close behind them.

"I think, if it goes right," Ron said to Harry, in the same soft way he had spoken after they'd walked out the previous day, "they'll be in there for at least a few minutes."

Hermione didn't come out for over ten.


	7. Cleaning Teeth

Harry's first ever experience of going to the cinema felt more weird to him than anything else. He'd fantasized about it as a kid, when the Dursleys had gone off to the movies and left him with Mrs. Figg. It was partly in fulfillment of that fantasy that he made sure to buy himself a big carton of popcorn. Except that turned out to not taste very good. So instead he just sat there with it on his lap, breathing in the smell, which was a bit better than the taste, trying not to feel too much like he was impersonating a Muggle, being here.

The movie itself was a little long, and a little overly dramatic. But having heard the story of the _Titanic_ in primary school, he couldn't help but be fascinated to see the scenes involving the captain and crew. The hero and heroine sailing through the last sunset honestly made his breath catch, made him think of how the sky rushed past him when he literally flew, and how much he still sometimes felt how the girl clearly did in that scene. Also the scene during the music playing, of the woman and her two children doomed to go down with the ship, nearly made him cry. He thought the movie would've been better had it had more scenes like that, with people not involved in the central love story.

At last it was over, and as the credits rolled, Harry found himself saying, "I didn't get that last scene. Was she dying or something?"

"I think it was a dying dream," said Hermione. "Or the two of them reuniting in the afterlife."

"Why'd she throw the necklace into the ocean, though?!" Ron demanded. "What good is it going to do anyone there? This movie was a very silly movie with some very stupid people in it."

"Well, the stupid people being stupid was the point, I think," said Hermione. Ron looked at her crossly, but she then said, "You're right, though. Much of that was silly."

There hadn't been that many people in the movie theatre, and when they had sat for a couple more minutes, Harry noticed almost all of them were gone. "So what do we do next?" he asked. "It's still only half past four or so."

"Try to get a magical newspaper?" said Hermione. "We've been neglecting the news since we left Britain, and there's probably at least some significant events that have happened. Although since they're about the host a World Cup, most of the magical newspapers are going to have headlines related to that. I think they sell them in this place we can get to from near the owlery. If we get there after five we can get the evening edition."

They left the movie theatre as the woman singing about how her heart would go on gave way to instrumental music that reminded Harry of something he'd heard somewhere, expect he couldn't exactly remember what or when. Or maybe it was the song itself he had heard. When they'd been sitting down, he'd heard someone else there talk about how it had been on the radio all the time since December; maybe he and Hermione had heard it playing through someone's window. He thought about asking her, but he didn't want to bring those memories up.

It had gotten cool outside. Harry had been aware, of course, that the seasons here were the opposite of what they were at home, but it still caught him by surprise. He didn't like what that reminded him of, either. He wondered if, for the rest of his life, the cold would make him think of his most recent winter. That could be a major problem, unless he moved away to somewhere warm.

He looked between Ron and Hermione, since she'd experienced that whole winter with him, and even he'd been there for a bit of it. If they were thinking the same thing, they showed no sign of it. Though Hermione was in that way she got sometimes, where she had a task and would focus on it, striding forward through the Australian afternoon while they scurried after her, hoping she knew what buses they needed to take.

She did, of course. The bus ride passed with her poring further over maps of the routes and ignoring any attempts Harry and Ron made to talk to her. Eventually they gave up, and Ron spent the rest of it talking about who he thought had probably made the Scottish World Cup team, since they hadn't managed to find out yet. "Most of the teams are announced by now," he said, "although I think the United States might be announcing today; they're always late."

At about ten past five they got off the bus, having ridden past the innocent semi-boarded up building in which the public owlery was hidden five minutes earlier. Hermione led them to a vacant lot at the end of the block. It had a half-built fence stretching out halfway each way from the end corner, and when they stepped behind it they were hidden from the street and from most people on the sidewalk. There was mostly overgrown grass on the ground, but also two slats of wood that looked like they might have been signs once. Especially since on one of them was written "North," and on the other was written, "South."

"They don't have a big place like Diagon Alley here in Brisbane," she explained to them. "I think there are a handful of towns in Australia that have those kind of big places, but it's not the sort of country where all the magical inhabitants can get to a big city that easily anyway, so they've got to have an alternative for them. So mostly they have these much smaller squares of stores. There are two here, and I know there's a news stand in the south square. Take a hold of this." She picked up the piece of wood that said "South" on it, and Harry and Ron each took hold of it too. "In," she whispered. That obviously triggered the Portkey, because instantly they were being yanked forward into the whirlwind.

A moment later they landed on a plot of soft sand, and found themselves facing small knot of people who were obviously wizards and witches. "Finally," one of them sighed, and held out her hand. Hermione handed over the Portkey.

As they got out of the sandlot and stopped to shake the sand out of their shoes, Harry took a glance around. The square was made of flat shale, and was big enough for what looked like a dozen shops to surround it. He looked from one called _Brush & Seeds_, to one with a large broomstick on top the name of which he couldn't make out, to one called _Parchment_ which was very obviously a book store, with a rack of books on display in front of the door. It wasn't packed to the point it would be hard to navigate, but there were a lot of people there, especially around the news stand in the centre.

They made it halfway to the newstand before being accosted. "I would just like to say," said a breathless witch with crazy frizzly hair to Harry, "that I must thank you very much for destroying the menace of Europe. We Australians may have thought we were safe from him, here on the opposite side of the world, but the smart ones among us know we wouldn't have forever. We know everyone, no matter where they live, owe you a debt. So thank you, from all of us, a million times."

"You're welcome," Harry said awkwardly, and tried not to look annoyed as two more people promptly flocked up to them.

They did get to the newsstand eventually, by which time he'd been advised to buy two different newspapers. The United States had indeed announced its World Cup team, and headlines to that effect topped most of the papers for sale. Most of them, Harry assumed, were Australian, and he quickly spotted two with names that identified them as being specific to Brisbane, and another called _The Queensland Parchie_. But he also spotted _The Daily Prophet_ on display, next to something called _The New York Ghost_. "That should probably mention something about the Scottish team in it," said Ron.

"After we've read through the important news," said Hermione. "Hmm, they have _The Quibbler_ too. I don't know if they're still being useful…"

"Let's buy it anyway," said Harry. If nothing else, they might get a laugh. He thought Hermione could do with one after these past two days.

He went with the _Parchie_, since he'd been told it contained good information about the weather, buying it along with _The Quibbler_. He was uncomfortably aware of the fact that everyone was watching the Boy Who Lived and Also Just Defeated Voldemort buy _The Quibbler_. Hey, he told himself, it had a better reputation now. That was probably why it was so prominent on the stand.

They took their two purchases to one of the clump of benches near the sand. As they sat down, Harry noticed one witch look at him, then turn and whisper to her companion, but she didn't approach him.

He gave Ron _The Quibbler_, and himself took a look at the weather page. According to one wizard who'd talked to them, it would actually change even as the people making the forecast changed it where they were making it. Right now it was predicting cooler temperatures for the rest of the week and no rain, but more than one windy day.

Hermione flipped the _Prophet_ over to read the story below the fold, and though _The Quibbler_ was open on the latter's lap, Harry and Ron found themselves reading the names of the American team upside down, Ron whispering to Harry details about the various players. The story also got quotes from various members of the British and Irish teams, so they found out the Irish Chasers who had won the previous Cup were all back, the highlight of the Scottish team was their youngest Chaser, Namir Uswardi ("But we all knew he'd be on the team already, anyway," Ron commented), and that they'd surprised a bit by choosing as their main Seeker Alice McClellan.

"There's whispers some of the Death Eaters may try to avoid time in Azkaban by testifying against others," said Hermione. "The Ministry may have even entered seriously negotiations with some, possibly as many as a dozen, thought the _Prophet_ claims to have no knowledge of whom."

Harry had the feeling three of those would be the Malfoys. Perhaps Molly Weasley's response to the letter Hermione had sent her today would even be preceded by some sort of missive to him, either from Narcissa Malfoy or prompted by her actions. He'd deal with that when the time came, he supposed.

"They also found about thirty likely all Muggle-borns dead in a mass grave," she continued, turning grim. "Killing Curse on all of them. They can try to determine if they were killed by the wands of anyone they currently have in custody, though right now they're still trying to identify everyone. Seventeen names so far, they've got them all printed here…"

She recited them. Harry didn't recognize any of them, though he saw a reaction from Ron to the name of Emma Hortington. "She was an old friend of my mum's," he explained. "She even visited the Burrow a few times when I was young, and I think she attended Bill and Fleur's wedding too."

"The Ministry has hinted they'll set more trial dates next week," said Hermione, "and they've got a few more people confirmed as alive who managed to hide in Ireland. That's pretty much it for the news except for the World Cup teams. The English and Scottish teams are both going to be here in Australia within the next two weeks, possibly setting up camp in the Outback, near where half the group matches are going to be played. I understand fans occasionally go there to watch that sort of thing, but officials frown on it for obvious reasons. It's probably not practical for us to go anyway."

The boys turned to their own papers then. Harry found little in the _Parchie_ besides what Hermione had already said and Australian news. But soon Ron began to chuckle. "What?" Harry asked.

"Did you know," Ron grinned, "that Grindelwald he planted secret stashes of gold up and down the east coast of North America? Mostly in Florida, according to one theory, but another one puts them along some of the common flying routes that go from Britain to the States through the Artic. Since a lot more wizards used those routes than usual last year, they're looking for stories from people who think they found some of them.

They're looking for more general stories too, though," he said. "Real stories, I think, about people who flew those routes, and especially what information they have about who's alive and who's dead. They did a bit of that before Luna was taken, trying to get that kind of information to people as much as they could get away with. I suppose they might continue that for as long as they have to."

"I hope so," said Hermione. "Ah, the Portkey's available."

**The Next Day**

Harry had been to the dentist for the first time when he was seven, after Dudley had gotten mad that he had to go and Harry didn't. It had made him aware, in the way most children weren't, that even if being there was unpleasant, it was better if you went to the dentist.

Still, he hadn't been there since right after his first year at Hogwarts, when a week into the summer Dudley had needed to go, so he'd had to go too. His teeth had been in far better shape than Dudley's, and Dudley had gotten even angrier when he'd ended up suffering much more than his cousin had. That hadn't ended well for anyone. Harry supposed being able to clean one's teeth with magic, which most of them had learned to do by the end of their first year, helped keep them in better shape. But of course he'd still had to use a toothbrush, and an old and ratty one, during summers with the Dursleys.

All in all, he couldn't help but be nervous when he was in that dental chair. Even telling himself he'd been through things far worse didn't help as much as he'd thought it would. This was just too reminiscent of the time before all that, involuntarily bringing back how he'd felt about things then. There was even an anxious moment when he half-expected to hear Dudley complaining in the waiting room.

It helped take him back to the current time, though, when he heard a voice with a thick Australian accent, saying, "I can still get started on him. Might take a bit, right?"

Craig was a large and jovial sort of bloke, with a dark buzzcut, and a hot, calloused hand with which he shook Harry's and introduced himself. He was quite dismayed to hear that Harry hadn't been to the dentist for six years. When he looked into Harry's mouth, he said, "Count yourself lucky, my boy. You could be a lot worse. But I'm afraid this isn't going to be too nice."

"It's all right," Harry tried to reassure him. Most of what he'd experienced this last year hadn't been too nice either, after all.

He started with the metal picks, scraping the backs of Harry's teeth. It was, as he'd warned, not too nice, but Harry endured. It would be over when it was over, he reminded himself, and he knew it would be. This was simply the price he had to pay until then.

"And you came in during the wrong time for the Wilkinses to be at their best, I'm afraid," Craig continued. "It's a crazy story, but you probably should know it because I'm not entirely sure she's not going to show up today; they're not answering too many questions about her…did you know for a year I thought they'd never had any children? Turns out they had a daughter, and they thought she'd died when she was only a few days old, but actually there was a mix-up, and two days ago she showed up on their doorstep and revealed she was still alive!"

Harry made a vague noise he hoped sounded appropriately shocked. He supposed that had been the best explanation for their suddenly having a daughter the Grangers had been able to think up.

Then he didn't have to talk, because Craig was scraping the back of his teeth hard enough to make his head quiver. "You poor boy, someone your age really shouldn't have to go through this. Her name's Hermione. Hermione Granger; she insists on keeping the last name of the people who raised her. I suppose she really has two sets of parents, now. Can't be an easy situation for anyone. But this is a bit of a shock, of course, and I think Monica's even angry, I mean at the poor girl herself. Take a swig."

Harry took a swig of the water Craig offered and spit into the adjoining basin. He remembered always wanting more water as a kid. He wouldn't have minded it now either.

"From what I understand," Craig continued, "she's already of age, and she wants to go back to England and continue to live with the Grangers until she gets her own place. I wonder if she even understands how happy her parents are here. I hope she doesn't expect them to follow her back there. There, swig again, and then I'll get the toothbrush." That was more than one kind of relief; hearing his words had felt a little weirder than Harry had been prepared for.

The whir of the toothbrush, of course, wasn't that loud. But when it was against his teeth, Harry suddenly found it hard to hold still. He wasn't even sure why he was so jumpy about it. It didn't even remind him of anything. But it was just so jarring.

Distantly he found himself worrying if he'd ever be comfortable on a fast-moving broomstick again. He hadn't really had time to try since the final battle.

He found himself feeling surprisingly indignant when Craig gave him too little water during the next pause. "That's as much as you get," he said, in a stern voice that Harry would've thought he was too old for. It was a pity he couldn't tell the guy he shouldn't talk to someone who had just defeated a Dark Lord that way.

By the time Craig was halfway done, Harry's fingers were curled around the arms of the seat. At least he didn't comment any further, just keep the mechanical toothbrush relentlessly moving around, leaving each of Harry's teeth feeling like it had just been ground into. There was one moment he thought it was over, and then Craig moved the toothbrush over a spot Harry was pretty sure he'd done already and possibly did it all over again, he wasn't sure.

But at last he put the thing away, and Harry took one last swig from the cup. He still felt like there was grit in his mouth, though, all hallowed out. He'd forgotten that feeling over the past six years, and he hadn't missed it. It didn't help matters that instead of getting to get up immediately, the way he had last time, he was told to remain where he was. "One of the Wilkinses should be coming it."

Harry was relieved when it was Dr. Wendell Wilkins, as he supposed he ought to think of him as, rather than his wife. "I want to take a photo of your teeth," he said. The dentist had done that during his last trip, so Harry knew the drill, although Dr. Wilkins explained it to him anyway. As he leaned over Harry's mouth to put the uncomfortable cardboard in, he murmured, "We've been talking further. I've decided I'd like it if Hermione wrote to us before she comes back here, though I can't promise her mother will be willing to read it."

Harry wasn't able at that moment to make more than an affirmative "ah-ah." He hoped his gladness was somehow visible.

He did wish he could say a little more, though. He wondered if her father knew that in second year, when Hermione had been outraged to learn there was a potion to cure cavities that was perfectly appropriate for their level but Snape wasn't going to teach, she'd decided to learn it on her own. She'd spent much of her time in the Hospital Wing reading about it, and at the end of the year she'd taken the time out and brewed it. "I suppose there's still a little part of me that wants to be just like my parents," she'd laughed to him and Ron.

He didn't, of course, know what she'd been through after modifying their memories. Harry had the feeling Hermione was never going to tell them about that. Nor did he really know just how much her parents had lingered on Hermione's mind. That, he suspected, she might never talk about to anyone.

The pictures were taken, and when Harry had those things out of his mouth, he actually started to think the ordeal was over. But then Dr. Wilkins came back in, and he said, "I'm afraid you have a cavity. You're lucky in that it's one we caught early. In fact, we don't even have to treat it today. We could wait, and do it in June, when you're back in Australia."

Or he could just use the cavity-curing potion. Although that would require an explanation for Craig why he hadn't gotten it taken care of at either time. Also he remembered what Hermione had said about her parents feelings about teeth and magic. He really, really, did not want to provide them with another reason to be upset with any of them.

Still he was tempted to say wait on it. He'd already been through plenty that day. Besides, it would mean another chance to talk with him and his wife, see how they were coping with having their memories back once they'd had some time.

But then he thought about her, and how much pain she'd caused her daughter. There was obviously going to be a lengthy period of time involved in this where he wouldn't be able to speak, and meanwhile he might get stuck listening to her say who knew what about Hermione, unable to offer any rebuttals no matter what ridiculous things she said.

Right now, he could hear her working on another patient, and she had a drill, which meant she was probably going to stay busy a while. So Harry said, "I'd prefer if you did it now."

Numbing felt weird. It was a good thing, obviously, and Harry wondered why Madam Pomfrey hadn't tried to do some version of it that time she'd had to regrow all the bones in his arm, even if she could heal most injuries up quickly enough to not need to. But all the same, there was something unpleasant about having control of part of his mouth taken from him. He tried not to think about it, but he was stuck in that chair with nothing else to do.

Dr. Wilkins didn't try to talk to him for the first part of it after he took the drill out. He was probably concentrating on what he was doing, and that was another good thing. Distantly, Harry heard the other drill stop, and his wife's voice say, "There. All done. I'll have a word with your mother now." Her voice was softer than he'd heard it before, the sort of voice she should have still been talking to her daughter with.

"Almost there," Dr. Wilkins finally said. For another minute or so after that, he was silent again. But then he said, "If you don't mind, I'd like you to tell our daughter one more thing? Just…tell her that we both still love her, and we will no matter what. I finally got Monica to admit to that this morning."

Personally, Harry thought that given they weren't flying back to Britain the very next day, he could definitely have gotten himself into Hermione's company again and told her himself. But even though Dr. Wilkins then said, "All done," and removed the drill, when he tried to move his mouth to speak, Harry discovered that he could not. "Don't try to talk yet," the dentist told him. "It'll wear off eventually. Just tell her." So Harry had to nod, and be grateful that he wasn't currently expected to smile.

Ron and Hermione had wisely chosen not to accompany him to the dentist's, deciding to instead take a look into the north side of the shopping area they'd gone to the previous day. Harry had to change buses at one point to get there, but he did it without too much trouble. He could've done without the confused stare of the second bus driver when he made no response to his greeting as he got on, just paying him the fare without speaking. It got him a couple more looks from the front of the bus, which felt far more aggravating than perhaps they should have. Everything felt tense. The lack of feeling in his mouth was making him feel it more in the rest of his body, his shoulders especially.

He still wasn't too confident about his ability to do much with his mouth when he got off the bus and walked down the block, and he was greatly relieved to find Ron and Hermione waiting for him, sitting in the grass by the signs. He knew he definitely was not looking entirely normal, at least from up close, because when he got there Ron started, and demanded, "What happened, mate? Did you run into someone?!"

"No, Ron," Hermione said hastily. "You had a cavity? A minor one, I hope? And they insisted on dealing with it?"

Harry could nod; his neck muscles were fine, but even that felt like a weird experience. "It'll wear off soon," Hermione assured him.

"Yeah, but what's he going to do in the meantime? He looks like someone hit him with a Slackjaw Jinx! Can't you do something to fix it?"

"Well," Hermione took out her wand, and looked Harry's head up and down, considering it. "I don't know if I could make you feel normal again, Harry, but I could probably…"

But just then they were the swoop of air that came from a large group of people arriving by Portkey, and a moment later they were joined by eight strangers, five wizards with long beards and less than neat clothing and three witches holding very large cloth bags. Two of them were busy enough chattering with each other they didn't immediately notice their company, but the other six were staring right at them. Too many that there would've been any chance none would recognize Harry, especially when the visible state of his face drew their attention to him anyway.

For a moment, it seemed, the sight of Harry Potter here in Brisbane looking like he'd been hit with a Slackjaw Jinx was enough to stun them all into silence. Their two talkative companions noticed, looked over, and were quickly rendered into the same state. It was so mortifying Harry now couldn't talk for more than one reason. Ron and Hermione were looking anxiously at each other.

Then one of them laughed, and two more joined in. At least the rest didn't, and one of them even tried to hiss something about being polite.

But it was still really loud, and something about it, he didn't even know what, was simply unbearable. Harry was able to fight back the urge to yell or even throw a punch, but then he couldn't stay. Without even trying to say anything, even to his two friends, he turned and walked, fast.

There were indignant exclamations, of course. That he wouldn't have cared about. But then one of the men actually ran up to him and grabbed him by the arm.

Harry didn't even think about it. Later, he would think it was a good thing he hadn't happened to be holding his wand, because he didn't know what would've happened. Instead he just threw that punch.

The man was middle aged and not that big; instantly his grip was gone and he was staggering back. But then one of the other men yelled, "Hey, you wanker!" and raised his wand.

_"__Accio Harry!"_ Hermione yelled. Before Harry could protest, she had a hold on both him and Ron, and she was Apparating the three of them away.

She'd taken them back to the bus stop. Harry looked around, was glad to see no one immediately around, and felt himself calm a little. Ron was looking anxiously at him, but he could see Harry was unharmed, and he too seemed to relax after a second.

That left only Hermione pacing around in a tiny circle after letting go of them murmuring, "This is bad, it'll be all over the papers tomorrow, everyone will now think you're crazy, my God, Harry, what happened back there?!"

She got louder on this last bit, turning to face him. She looked so upset Harry couldn't even be mad at her. Especially not when she took a deep breath, pointed her wand at him, and muttered, _"Mobilior,"_ and he while he still felt numb, he suspected he'd be able to talk now.

"What did happen, mate?" Ron asked. "I know that bloke was a rude git, but why'd you have to punch him?"

The question resounded in Harry's head. He took another minute, also because it took that long to convince himself he could talk again. But then, even though he still couldn't feel that part of his jaw moving, he was saying, "I…don't know. It all just happened so fast."

"Hmmm," Ron considered. "You know, this trip has been a bit hard on all of us, I think. And well, I don't think your parents are going to want to talk to us much more, Hermione, so maybe we should just fly home early?"

Hermione, still walking around and around, sighed. "I don't know. We probably should, but…I just don't want to leave that quickly."

"Then we won't," said Harry. He wasn't going to force Hermione to walk away from her parents when he was still kind of hoping himself they'd come to their senses if they just hung around a little longer.

"Harry," sighed Ron, "look, I know how you feel about parents. But honestly, I'm glad I didn't go to see them today, not even because of what they might say to me, but because of what I might have said to them, and I don't see why parents like them are worth staying here in a strange country where you're having trouble-"

"I'm not having trouble!" Harry found himself snapping. Hermione had opened her mouth with an obvious intent to argue with him too, but she hastily shut it. "I just…I can handle myself. I don't need to run and hide from people, and I don't want to."

Ron might have avoided Hermione's angry words for now, but she was still giving him a pretty loaded look, and under it, he gave in, sighing, "All right, then. If you both want to stay, I suppose we're staying. But don't be surprised if my mum suddenly shows up at the hotel once that letter reaches her."


End file.
